


Just Think of Me as Your Guardian Devil

by lucks_eterna



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Emotional Connection, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Gen, Guardian Angels, Sharing a Bed, life saving shenanigans, lots of movie night cuddling, might seem ooc because this Lucifer doesn't have the same life experiences as our Lucifer, sensing each other's emotions, wing blankets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:55:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 40,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21698854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucks_eterna/pseuds/lucks_eterna
Summary: Lucifer had had enough. He didn’t know exactly what drove him over the edge that day, but for whatever reason, he finally snapped.What if Lucifer had been trapped in hell since his fall? No breaks. No vacations. No reprieve from the utter monotony of hell.After eons of punishment, Lucifer finally sucks up his pride and prays to his Father for forgiveness.God agrees to grant Lucifer His forgiveness on one condition: he must become a guardian angel and keep his human alive until her natural death.Desperate for freedom, Lucifer agrees, and becomes Chloe Jane Decker’s guardian angel.Even though he’s stripped of his powers, he’s still the devil. And an angel. Just think of him as her guardian devil.A deckerstar guardian angel AU that’s 80% fluff, 20% angst, and 100% tropey as hell
Relationships: Chloe Decker & Dan Espinoza, Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 149
Kudos: 539





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello readers! I'm back with another deckerstar AU. This fic is about 40k words and 10 chapters in total. I have it finished so no need to worry about it being abandoned. Updates will be on Sundays but since the first 2 chapters are kinda short, I'll post ch 1 today and ch 2 on Sunday. This was my NaNoWriMo project and the first time I ever participated in NaNoWriMo so I'm excited to share what I've got with you guys and I hope you like it. You can find me on tumblr and twitter @lucks_eterna

Lucifer had had enough. He didn’t know exactly what drove him over the edge that day, but for whatever reason, he finally snapped. 

He had been trapped in hell for what felt like forever with no breaks, no vacations, and no reprieve from the utter monotony of punishing damned souls day after day; if you could even call the way that time passed in hell ‘days’.

He had his chance at redemption years ago but he blew it. 

The one time he had been allowed on earth since his rebellion was to visit a little place called Eden and he had royally screwed up. 

Lucifer, equipped with a flaming sword, was tasked with guarding Eden and protecting Adam and Eve from the world outside without being seen but instead, he had gotten intimately involved with the two of them and become a leading character in their story.

His Father wasn’t pleased, to say the least, and banished Lucifer to hell once more. 

The first time he was banished to hell after his rebellion was bad, but the second time was worse. 

This time, God ripped Lucifer’s wings from his back, effectively slamming the gates of hell shut and throwing away the key. 

Without wings, Lucifer had no hope of ever leaving hell, no way to take a vacation or even get a glimpse of what was happening on earth, and no ‘get out of jail free card’ that his wings had offered him the first time around.

Since time passed much slower in hell than it did on earth, he didn’t know exactly how long it had been up there, but he guessed that it was somewhere in the thousands of years. Lucifer’s stubbornness, or pride, as he preferred to call it, kept him from ever trying to make amends with his Father. 

As bad as the monotony of hell was, he just couldn’t bring himself to beg for forgiveness. 

Groveling had never been his style and for eons, he had found his position as the ruler of hell tolerable. 

Today, however, was different. 

For whatever reason, he had finally hit his breaking point and when Lucifer snapped, he snapped hard.

As if in a trance, Lucifer made the trek from his throne to the gates of hell. 

Lucifer approached the gate and then, taking a running start, threw himself into the doors in an attempt to break through them. 

Shooting pain erupted in Lucifer’s shoulder when it touched the cool metal of the gates and the pain spread through his entire body until it felt like he was being consumed by flames all over again. 

The doors didn’t move an inch, but Lucifer was undeterred.

He threw himself into the enchanted metal barrier over and over again, the infernal metal slicing through his normally invincible skin until ichor was flowing from the cuts on his face, obscuring his vision and coating his hands. 

Lucifer took another running leap towards the gates, using all his supernatural strength to try to kick the doors down but still they would not budge. 

Lucifer bellowed in anger and continued his assault until he was bloodied and bruised beyond recognition. Finally, he fell to his knees in defeat and gave into his sheer exhaustion.

At last, Lucifer knew he had reached rock bottom. 

At that moment, he decided to suck up his pride for once in his life and do the thing he never thought he’d do.

Lucifer lifted his gaze upwards and closed his eyes. Slowly, he brought his palms together, steepling his fingers under his chin.

“I give up!” he announced in exasperation, “you win, Dad. I know I said that I would never say it, but I just can’t take it anymore, I’m going crazy down here, please! Forgive me, Father for I have sinned. I know I messed up big time with the whole rebellion thing and I know that I just made things worse with the Adam and Eve debacle but please, just give me another chance to prove myself. You always were fond of the number three so maybe third time will be the charm. I’ll be the son you that you always wanted me to be, I’ll do as you ask, go where you want me to. In exchange, all I ask is that you grant me my freedom. Let me out of here!” he shouted before adding the last word in a barely audible whisper, “please.”

At first, Lucifer thought that he was hallucinating from exhaustion but he quickly realized that his Father had indeed heard his prayer.

In a dream-like cloud, the visage of God descended upon Lucifer.

“I hear you, son. I always hear you. I understand that you want forgiveness and I’m willing to grant it to you, but you’re going to have to earn it. If you want your freedom, you have to prove to me that you deserve it.”

“I’ll do anything,” Lucifer croaked, hating how desperate he sounded.

“Do you want your wings back, son?” God inquired, even though he already knew the answer.

“Yes, more than anything!”

“You’ve already disappointed me twice, Samael, so if you truly want them back, you need to earn them. I’ll give them back to you if you accept my conditions.”

“Name them,” Lucifer rasped. 

Perhaps if he had been allowed periodic vacations from hell, he would’ve been able to hold onto his sanity better and wouldn’t be this weak and pathetic shadow of the archangel he once was. 

Perhaps if circumstances had been different, he would still be the same snarky, quick-witted delinquent. But, without an occasional reprieve from hell, his personality had changed dramatically. Instead of turning his anger and hate toward his Father like the old Lucifer would’ve done, he turned it inwards until he hated himself more than the rest of the world hated him.

“You know how fond I am of equal justice, how I like the punishment to fit the crime?” God said, a smile playing across his face.

“I’m aware.”

“Well, since you failed to protect Eden from danger and were derelict in your duties as its guardian, if you accept my terms, you’re getting demoted. You won’t be an archangel anymore, but rather, a lowly guardian angel. If you can keep your charge safe until her natural death then you shall be redeemed and promoted back to an archangel, but if she should die before her time comes, you will be stripped of your wings once more and once again be damned to hell.”

“I accept your terms, on one condition, old man,” Lucifer said, finding just a bit of his former confidence.

“You really think you’re in a position to be negotiating right now?” God asked, more amused than angered, “very well, let me hear your request.”

“While I’m guarding this human, give me my space. No using your omniscience to snoop on me or check up on me every second of every day. If I’m going to do this right, I can’t have you breathing down my neck, stressing me out, knowing that you’re watching my every move. Trust me a little bit, Dad.”

God sighed, knowing he couldn’t break a promise after he agreed to it, but granted His son’s wish nonetheless, “fine, I agree to your one condition.”

“Excellent, it’s a deal then,” Lucifer said, genuinely smiling for what felt like the first time in forever. He had always liked making deals with his siblings back in the Silver City and he had a feeling he would enjoy making deals with humans, “now then, what’s the name of this human I’m in charge of guarding?”

God smiled and snapped his fingers, producing a thick file out of thin air and presented it to Lucifer for his perusal, “her name, is Chloe Jane Decker.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise guys the chapters do get longer. These first two are really just introductory chapters. Lots more to come ;)

Lucifer flipped through Chloe Decker’s file, learning every detail about her life, “so why is this one so important?” he asked his Father. 

In the old days, there used to be enough guardian angels for every human to get one, but ever since the human population exploded, there simply aren’t enough guardian angels to keep up; so they had to prioritize. 

Now, people that lead uneventful lives that don’t regularly encounter risks and aren’t going to change the course of history don’t get assigned a guardian angel. Only humans that lead exceptionally extraordinary or exceptionally dangerous lives are assigned one.

“She’s a police officer for the LAPD,” God answered.

“So what? There are lots of police officers that don’t have guardian angels, what makes this one so special? Is she going to take a bullet for the mayor or jump in front of a moving car to save a child at some point in her life?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss her future,” God answered tersely, “all I can say is that she’s an exceptional officer who’s made some enemies in her department along the way, namely, Malcolm Graham,” God snapped his fingers and a breeze blew the file in Lucifer’s hands to the page detailing Chloe’s history with Malcolm, “Malcolm hates her because she accused him, rightly so, of being a corrupt cop and alerting Internal Affairs of his shady dealings, not to mention all the criminals she’s put away over her career that want her dead.”

“Hmm,” Lucifer hummed as he continued to read her file. He was impressed and somewhat intimidated by the integrity that this woman displayed. 

At every turn, even when it would’ve been easier to look the other way, she consistently did the right thing. Lucifer thought that if he had even a tenth of her righteousness, he wouldn’t have been damned to hell. 

Lucifer shook his head and reminded himself that the past was in the past and that this was his chance at a better future.

“So,” God said, “your duty is to protect her from the threats of her job and her coworkers. Keep her safe from harm’s way, all without being seen. Do you think you can manage that?”

“Pssh,” Lucifer scoffed, “piece of cake.”

“Alright, son, I’m trusting you to do this job right. I promise I won’t use my omniscience to snoop on you but you need to protect this human like your life depends on it, because in many ways, it does.”

With that ominous warning, God snapped his fingers for a final time and disappeared. Lucifer blinked a few times as his eyes adjusted to his surroundings. 

He was once again kneeling in front of the gates of hell. For a moment he thought that he had hallucinated the whole thing, but a novel feeling made Lucifer discount that theory.

For the first time in millennia, Lucifer felt whole. 

Not only had all his cuts and bruises from bashing himself into the gate healed, gone was the persistent throbbing pain of his wing scars. 

Lucifer slowly turned his head to look over his shoulder, as if he were afraid they would disappear if he looked at them too quickly. They didn’t disappear though, and when he looked over his shoulder, he found that his massive, majestic, white wings were shining brighter than ever before.

He wrapped his wings around himself, savoring the sensation of their softness and grabbing handfuls of feathers to experience their texture and the comfort that he had been denied for so long. 

When the moment passed, Lucifer looked around to make sure that no demons were watching and began to compose himself. He took a deep breath and held it in for a few seconds before forcefully exhaling it.

Taking twenty steps back from the gates, Lucifer got a running start and then began to beat his wings, achieving lift off.

The mechanics of flying came back to him easily, just like riding a bike. 

Right when it looked like he was about to smash into the gates yet again, a mighty flap of his wings carried him through the gates unscathed and he slipped between planes of existence. 

When he crossed over to the earthly plane, he was at the bottom of the ocean. Out of habit, Lucifer drew in a breath only to be greeted with a lungful of water. Lucifer choked on the water and his eyes went wide in panic. Even though he couldn’t die of drowning, the sensation of water filling his lungs was not a pleasant one. 

It took Lucifer a few seconds to orient himself before figuring out which way was up and which was down. Once he got his bearings, he used his powerful wings like a penguin to propel himself upwards. He shot out of the ocean like a missile, sputtering and spewing water everywhere.

Once he was done choking and had gotten all the water out of his system, he took deep breaths, taking in the fresh ocean air. The air in hell was always stagnant and putrid so his first breaths of air on earth in millennia were sweeter than cherry wine.

Lucifer hauled his waterlogged wings to shore, which, luckily, wasn’t too far from where he had surfaced. 

He shook himself off and ruffled his feathers to get them to dry faster. It was night time so there weren’t many people on the beach but one homeless man who had witnessed the whole thing looked at Lucifer in shock.

“Excuse me, would you mind telling me where I am. What city is this?” Lucifer inquired politely.

The man rubbed his eyes and blinked to see if he was hallucinating before surmising that he wasn’t and declaring, “you have wings!”

“Ah yes, that does tend to be a bit of a conversation stopper for you humans,” Lucifer rolled his shoulders, using muscle memory to fold them out of sight. He cringed at the sensation of his still-wet wings being folded away but he soldiered through, “now, where were we? Ah, right, where are we?”

“You’re in Los Angeles, dude,” the man answered.

“Excellent, I’m right where I need to be,” Lucifer let his wings spring free, sending water droplets in all directions like a dog shaking after a bath and then took to the skies. 

Lucifer flapped and flapped until he was high above the ground and the people and cars below looked like specks. 

He marveled at the city before him and at just how far humans had come as a species since his last visit. Lucifer tried to keep up with current events on earth by talking to souls that arrived in hell but their stories just didn’t do justice to the beauty before him.

He felt tears beginning to prick his eyes and as he soared over the concrete jungle below, Lucifer wept. 

Lucifer cried at how much he had been missing and how if only he had sucked up his pride and apologized sooner, he could’ve been around to see so much more. He cried tears of joy from the feeling of finally flying again and because even if he missed so much of humanity’s development, he was here now. As long as he didn’t mess up again, he would get to enjoy all the wonders that earth had to offer.

Lucifer felt tears roll down to the tip of his long nose and fall off, plummeting down to earth. He supposed that if it landed on a human below, they would think it was raining.

Lucifer did a few spirals and backflips as he gained more confidence flying and took a few moments to relish the mix of emotions inside of him. When he had had his fun, he took a deep, cleansing breath and wiped away the remaining moisture from his cheeks. Lucifer shook his head to clear his thoughts and focused. 

If he wanted to stay up here, he couldn’t just goof off all day; he had a job to do. If he wanted to have the freedom to explore earth, he had to ensure that Chloe Jane Decker survived until she was 89 years old, at which point she is to peacefully die in her sleep. 

According to her file, she was 28 years old now, which meant that he only had to keep her alive for 61 more years; truly a blink of the eye in the life of an immortal archangel. 

_Well, guardian angel now,_ he thought, remembering his demotion. 

It wasn’t that bad though. Guardian angels were like the lite version of archangels: still stronger and faster than humans but slower and weaker than archangels. They still had heightened senses but they didn’t have any of the special gifts that archangels had, which meant that Lucifer’s magnetism and ability to draw out desires was dampened until he completed his task and earned his redemption. 

Lucifer didn’t really mind losing his ‘gift’ of desire. It didn’t work on demons or celestials so the only people he got to use it on in hell was damned souls, and asking them what they desired wasn’t very fun when the answer was, almost always, to stop being tortured.

The one key difference between archangels and guardian angels is that guardian angels are tethered to their human so that they can sense when they are in danger, where they are, and what they’re feeling at all times.

Right now, Lucifer could sense that she was asleep and his nose was tingling, guiding him in her direction. Almost like a compass, Lucifer could feel his human’s soul pulling at him as if to say ‘come and find me’.

Play time was over; now it was time to get to work. 

Lucifer took one last look at Los Angeles from above before circling around and giving in to the compulsion to find and protect his human.

The tingling in his nose was not unlike the sensation right before a sneeze; not exactly pleasant but not painful either. Like a compass needle drawn to true north, Lucifer let his newfound sixth sense guide him to a house on the beach. 

He peered in the upstairs window and caught sight of a beautiful young woman fast asleep in her bed. His heart leapt and his whole body thrummed with electricity, pleased that he had finally found his human.

She looked so peaceful in her sleep and was even more beautiful than the picture in her file. Lucifer had encountered plenty of people in hell who were beautiful on the outside but rotten on the inside but seeing someone who was so stunningly gorgeous and so honorable at the same time really amazed him.

Lucifer leaned on the window sill to observe her sleeping form and began what would be a lifetime of looking after her.

“Chloe Decker,” he whispered to himself, “I’m gonna keep you safe. I’m gonna protect you. I promise.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters 1 and 2 set things up but now things REALLY get going. Let me know what you think. Comments and kudos are always appreciated and you can find me on twitter and tumblr @lucks_eterna if you want to interact :)

Over the next few days, Lucifer got better and better at staying close to Chloe while remaining out of sight. 

He followed her to work, kept track of her movements as she responded to calls and walked the beat, and watched over her at home while she slept. 

He watched her go to work, come home, and go to sleep just to repeat the same routine over again the next day. Lucifer quickly realized that Chloe Decker’s life wasn’t very interesting and even though she was a cop, her day to day activities weren’t all that life-threatening. 

The highlight of his week was when Chloe went to the grocery store and he moved a wet floor sign so that she could see it better to avoid slipping. With each passing day of monotony, Lucifer’s boredom grew.

As his boredom grew, so did his boldness. 

Lucifer went from keeping a safe distance from Chloe at all times to tailing her closer and closer and coming inside her house once she was asleep instead of just waiting outside and watching from the window.

He knew his behavior was bordering on stalkerish but he justified going through all her cabinets and drawers by insisting that he was just making sure her house was free from dangers.

Even though Chloe was just a cop, she liked to take cases home to try and solve them. She knew that if she wanted to make detective, she would have to show initiative, so she would routinely pore over case files in her limited free time to see if she could see something that the detectives had missed.

One night, she was looking at a particularly difficult case about a star high school football player that wound up dead in a swimming pool. She had been looking over the case file for hours and wasn’t making any progress.

It was getting late but she refused to give into her exhaustion and kept at it even though she probably should’ve gone to bed or at least taken a break. Chloe kept working well into the night but she just couldn’t figure out who the killer was. At one point, she closed her eyes to rest them for a few seconds but she fell asleep almost immediately, still sitting at her desk, papers strewn everywhere.

Lucifer had been watching her little ritual of sitting at her desk with a case file for weeks now and his curiosity finally got the best of him. 

When he saw her head loll to the side and sensed that she was asleep, he noiselessly climbed through the window into her office. 

Lucifer peered over her shoulder and examined the papers lying on the desk in front of her. 

Lucifer tried to focus on the details of the case but with Chloe mere inches away, his skin was practically humming with electricity. He hadn’t been this close to her since… well, ever and his heart rate was noticeably elevated.

Lucifer calmed down enough to peruse the file and all its details. The poor young man had been killed and his body was dumped in the school’s swimming pool. Lucifer balked at the picture of the athlete’s dead body, engorged with pool water from hours of soaking before being discovered.

Lucifer hated when children and teens wound up in hell because they were either pure, irredeemable evil, or had so much misplaced guilt and teenage angst that they undeservingly damned themselves to hell. Lucifer especially hated when they were murdered and took solace in punishing those who decided to end the lives of adolescents.

Lucifer pushed past his discomfort and continued to read the notes taken by detectives and forensic investigators on the scene. 

After reading through interviews of those closest to the victim, Lucifer made a connection that Chloe’s sleep-deprived brain couldn’t see.

“The coach is the killer!” He was so excited by his discovery that he blurted it out without thinking.

Chloe jerked awake at the sound of his voice and Lucifer bolted from the room, only narrowly avoiding being caught.

Chloe looked around for the source of the sound but quickly decided that it was all in her head. She thought it was weird that she was hearing voices but quickly discounted it. Maybe it was a dream or her subconscious connecting the dots.

She examined the file again, this time looking closer at the young man’s football coach. Sure enough, the coach’s alibi was flimsy and he had given the officers multiple statements that contradicted each other.

Chloe smiled and pumped her fist. She was so thrilled with her breakthrough that she completely forgot about the weirdness of hearing voices.

She began composing copious notes that painted a clear picture of how the coach murdered his player in a fit of rage and then panicked and dumped his body in the swimming pool. When Chloe was satisfied with her work, she closed the file and finally went to bed.

The next morning, Chloe marched right up to the lieutenant’s office with the unsolved homicide file in hand and showed him what she had found. She laid out the case against the coach and the lieutenant agreed to bring him in for another round of questioning.

By noon, the coach had confessed to murder and was already being processed. 

Many of Chloe’s fellow officers and even some detectives congratulated her on cracking the case but the lead detective, Malcolm Graham, shot her scathing glares from across the precinct. 

Chloe wanted to believe that he was only mad at her because she saw what he couldn’t see and made him look bad for not solving it sooner, but she knew that there was more to it. 

Malcolm hated Chloe because she accused him of being a corrupt cop when she saw him taking money from a criminal while she was walking the beat. While a few of her colleagues also suspected that Malcolm was a dirty cop, they were either too scared or didn’t care enough to lodge a formal complaint.

They saw the way that Malcolm and his boy’s club turned on Chloe after they found out that she was the whistleblower and how the rest of the precinct either stood by and watched or actively ostracized Chloe as well.

Being associated with Chloe in any way was a liability so needless to say, Chloe didn’t have a lot of friends at the precinct. 

Chloe told herself that she didn’t mind not having friends at work. She argued that not having to make mindless small-talk or worry about petty office politics made her a better cop but, in truth, she was awfully lonely.

“Nice job cracking the case, Chloe, keep it up and I’m sure you’ll make detective in no time,” Dan said.

Detective Dan Espinoza was one of the few detectives that was willing to talk to Chloe. He used to be friends with Malcolm but he felt bad for how everyone treated Chloe so despite the risk of rejection from other detectives, he didn’t join in on shunning her.

Dan was the only detective that was nice to Chloe and outwardly tried to make her feel welcome, so it was only natural that she had developed a crush on him.

“Oh, hey, Dan! Thanks, I hope you’re right,” she said in what she hoped was a casual tone.   
Although Chloe and Dan had never once seen each other outside of work, Chloe’s feelings for him had been steadily growing. She had been pining for him from afar for years now; staring at him every time he would get up to grab a coffee from the breakroom or finding any excuse she could to walk past his desk. Chloe decided that it was finally time to work up the nerve to ask him out so when she saw an opening, she took it, “what are you doing this weekend?”

“Oh, nothing much, I’ll probably just hang out around my apartment and catch up on some TV. The Dodgers game is on Sunday and maybe I’ll go to the gym, I don’t know. What are you up to this weekend?”

“Yeah, I don’t have anything going on either, crazy!” Chloe said with a forced laugh. She was about to suggest that they go to dinner or lunch or coffee or anything to spend some time together but Dan spoke up before she could.

“Alright, cool. Well, enjoy your weekend, I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Haha, okay, sounds good. Bye!” Chloe said, mentally face-palming as he walked away.

Chloe stewed in her embarrassment for the rest of the day, reliving every awkward second of her conversation with Dan in her head and thinking about what she would’ve said differently if she could do it all over again. 

Chloe stayed late that day to finish up some paperwork so it was dark by the time she left work. 

All the detectives got their own parking spot for their personal vehicle in a secured parking garage but as a lowly police officer, Chloe got no such perk and had to find street parking for her car, often several blocks away. 

As she was walking in the dark to her car, the hair on the back of her neck began to stand on end and she had a feeling in the pit of her stomach that she was being followed. Her mind immediately jumped to Malcolm. 

She wasn’t sure if Malcolm or one of his goons would go as far as harming her, but she wouldn’t put it past him to follow her just to scare her.

Of course, her feeling was correct. She was being followed, just not by a murderer or anyone who wished to do her harm. 

Lucifer was perched in a tree a few hundred feet behind her, keeping an eye on her like always.

Chloe walked just a little bit faster and clutched her keys just a little tighter as she walked the last few blocks to where her car was parked. 

She checked the backseat for murderers before getting in because she’d seen way too many horror movies and wasn’t about to risk it. After confirming that there was no one lurking in her car, she got in, locked the doors behind her, and drove home.

Weeks went by and Chloe still couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being followed. At first it was unnerving and she was constantly paranoid that Malcolm or his lackeys would jump out and scare her but as time went on, the consistent feeling of another presence became oddly comforting. 

Once Chloe accepted that the presence, whatever it was, wasn’t going to harm her, she grew to appreciate it. 

Chloe continued to take cases home with her and continued to stay up way too late trying to solve them.

Some nights, she could’ve sworn that she fell asleep at her desk but would wake up gently tucked into her bed in the morning. 

Lucifer reasoned that keeping her safe included keeping her healthy and that started with making sure she got a good night’s sleep. During the nights where Chloe worked herself to exhaustion and fell asleep at her desk, Lucifer would wait until she was fast asleep before effortlessly picking her up, cradling her in his arms and carrying her to bed.

The first time he worked up the nerve to carry her to bed, he let out an audible gasp that nearly woke her up.

He was looking at her, really looking at her, up-close and personal for the first time and he was struck by her beauty. She looked so different when she was sleeping; like she didn’t have the weight of the world on her shoulders.

He gently brushed a stand of hair out of her face and pulled the covers up over her torso. Lucifer took a moment to savor the way her nose crinkled slightly in her sleep. 

He whispered a soft ‘good night’ and slipped back into the shadows just as she was beginning to snore.

This became a sort of unspoken tradition between the two of them; Chloe would fall asleep at her desk, oftentimes in exceedingly uncomfortable looking positions, and Lucifer would carry her to bed and tuck her in.

At first, Chloe wrote it off as sleepwalking or her exhaustion making her forget going to sleep in her bed but something in her gut told her that neither of those explanations were correct.

Lucifer continued to get more daring as time went on. 

He used to wait outside the precinct for Chloe to come out but now his boldness, bordering on cockiness, really, propelled him inside after her.

Since he was no longer an archangel, he didn’t have his inherent magnetism but he could still be plenty persuasive when he wanted to be. He smooth-talked his way past the desk guard and then circled the precinct floor, weaving in and out of officers as if he belonged there.

It’s amazing how no one will stop you or question what you’re doing as long as you walk swiftly and with a purpose. 

Lucifer strutted through the precinct confidently and observed his surroundings. 

Chloe had a cramped desk in the far corner that she shared with several other officers while the detectives had much larger desks towards the middle of the precinct that they didn’t have to share with anyone. 

Lucifer spotted Chloe near the break room getting a coffee and his hackles raised almost immediately when he spotted a lanky detective with a mustache approach her. Lucifer would know that porn ‘stache anywhere. 

Detective Malcolm Graham.

Lucifer tuned his supernatural hearing into their conversation and continued walking around the precinct.

“Hey, Dancer, how’s it going?” Malcolm greeted Chloe.

“It’s still ‘Decker’ and I was doing fine until you came over here. What do you want Malcolm?”

“Now is that any way to talk to your superior?” Malcolm said, clicking his tongue, “but what I _want_ is for you to mind your own damn business and stop making me look bad.”

“Maybe if you did your job right, I wouldn’t have to do it for you. Seriously, Malcolm, if a lowly police officer like me can easily solve your open cases without any of the resources you have access to, just by looking through the file, what does that say about you?” Chloe said, not pulling any punches.

“Awww little Chloe thinks she’s smart! It’s adorable, really,” Malcolm mocked before getting serious, “look, you might think that you’re some brilliant officer that’s gonna make detective lickety-splits but you’re not. You’re still the same stupid bitch that tried to paint me as a dirty cop without any proof.”

“But you _are_ a dirty cop!” Chloe interjected.

“Maybe I am,” he said with a shrug, “but the truth doesn’t matter. All that matters is perception, and last I checked, the whole precinct is on my side. Hell, even Danny boy only talks to you because he pities you.” 

The thing about bullies is that they’re excellent at finding the one thing you’re insecure about and exploiting it, and for Chloe, that thing was Dan’s tentative friendship with her.

Her strong and defiant façade began to crumble and Malcolm helped to tear it down, “that’s right, Chloe, Dan doesn’t care one bit about you. He feels bad for you because he knows what I know; that you’re a small, insignificant loser who is never gonna make detective and is just wasting everybody’s time.”

Chloe wished she could’ve come up with a witty retort or comeback to throw in his face but in that moment, all she could do was run to the bathroom so he wouldn’t see her cry.

Lucifer clenched his jaw as he heard it all unfold from across the precinct. He wanted to punch Malcolm in the face but he knew he couldn’t draw that kind of attention to himself so instead he chased after Chloe.

He could sense just how upset and embarrassed she was and he absolutely detested the feeling. While sensing the emotions of his human could be useful in certain cases, it was times like these that he really hated that ability. 

Lucifer rushed into the women’s bathroom after her, hoping that no one else was in there. 

Luckily, Chloe was the only other person in the restroom. She was sobbing softly in the far stall and Lucifer’s heart broke just a little bit at the sound.

After a fair amount of crying, Chloe reached for the toilet paper to dry her eyes but, unfortunately, the roll in her stall was out.

“Seriously?” Chloe muttered, slapping the empty roll in frustration, watching it spin around its holder as if it were mocking her.

Sensing her dilemma, Lucifer ducked into the stall next to hers and unraveled some tissue for her. He held it underneath their stall divider until she accepted it.

“Thanks,” she replied softly, slightly embarrassed that someone was hearing her cry.

In his best approximation of an American female voice, Lucifer said, “he’s not worth your tears, honey.”

“Oh, you saw that?” 

“Mmmhmm. Malcolm is an asshole. You’re smart and clearly have notable instincts. Ignore him, trust yourself.” Lucifer handed her another wad of toilet paper under the stalls.

A few moments passed while Chloe dried her eyes and took in a deep, cleansing breath.

“Thank you,” Chloe said, “for the tissue and the pep talk.”

“You’re welcome,” Lucifer said, getting so choked up from her immense gratitude that his accent started slipping. 

In an instant, Lucifer bolted from the bathroom before she could come out and see him.

Chloe fixed her makeup in the mirror before leaving the bathroom, wondering who the mystery officer was who had comforted her. She had left the bathroom before Chloe could thank her properly. Maybe she was too scared of Malcolm to associate with Chloe publicly but nevertheless, it was nice to know that she had a friend somewhere in the precinct. 

Over the next few weeks, Chloe channeled her anger for Malcolm into something more productive. She resolved to solve even more cases in her free time to make him look bad, and with Lucifer secretly helping her out, that’s exactly what she did.

When she was chasing suspects, Lucifer would trip them when they rounded a corner, allowing Chloe to easily handcuff them and bring them in.

Other times, when there was an APB out on a suspect that the police couldn’t find, Lucifer would track them down and leave them hog-tied in front of the precinct right as Chloe was walking through the door so that she would get credit for the arrest. One time he even put a big, sparkly bow on the forehead of a killer that proved to be particularly difficult to find. 

By now, Chloe knew that someone was helping her to catch all these bad guys. 

She could no longer write off all these criminals served to her on a silver platter as coincidences. 

If she had any idea who was helping her out, she would’ve sent them a thank you card or maybe a bunch of flowers, but since her anonymous helper wasn’t making him or herself known, she continued to take credit for the arrests.

After a few months of solving essentially all of Malcolm’s cases before him, Chloe got called into the lieutenant’s office.

“Officer Decker? A word, please,” said Lieutenant Jones. Trent Jones had a reputation as a tough but fair lieutenant, but the way that he phrased his request still had a way of making Chloe feel like she was in trouble. 

Chloe wondered if she was going to get in trouble for making Malcolm look bad or for solving cases she wasn’t assigned to. Or maybe she was in trouble for taking sole credit for arrests that someone was clearly helping her with and the lieutenant knew who was responsible. 

“What can I do for you, lieutenant?” she asked, cautiously.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been doing,” he said, which only made her more nervous, “I’ve noticed you putting in extra hours to solve cases that you aren’t even assigned to. I’ve seen the way you’ve been going above and beyond lately; nearly tripling your number of arrests, and I think you have a bright future ahead of you, officer. Are you aware that the detective’s exam is coming up next month?”

“I’m aware,” Chloe answered, wondering where Lieutenant Jones was going with this.

“Well, I’d like to make an official recommendation that you take that test. I know you’ve only been an officer a few years and normally we require five or six years as an officer before consideration for any promotion, but I think what you’ve got is special, Decker. Provided you pass the exam, I’m prepared to waive the experience requirement and make you a detective right away.”

“That’s… that’s amazing! Thank you, sir! Yes, of course I’ll take the exam. I won’t let you down, sir. Thank you!” Chloe was grinning from ear to ear. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, she had to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

“Well then you’d better get studying,” Lieutenant Jones said with a smirk, patting Chloe on the arm.

Chloe’s elation quickly turned back into nervousness as she realized that the detective’s exam was only a few weeks away and she hadn’t even started studying.

Chloe thought that she still had years ahead of her as a police officer so studying for the detective’s exam wasn’t even on her radar, but this new development changed everything.

From that moment on, Chloe spent all her free time with her nose glued to a study manual and stopped solving cases she wasn’t assigned to.

While Lucifer was happy for Chloe, he was also bored out of his mind again. He missed hog-tying suspects and taking down criminals. He couldn’t exactly help her study from afar so he continued to watch over her and tuck her into bed when she fell asleep studying at her desk.

When the morning of the detective’s exam finally came, Chloe slept through her alarm. She had stayed up too late last night studying and she would’ve missed her exam time if Lucifer hadn’t stepped in to save the day. 

When the standard chiming of her alarm clock wasn’t enough to wake her up, Lucifer knew that he had to take matters into his own hands and do it himself.

He took a moment to consider the best way to rouse her. He knew he couldn’t poke her or whisper her name without drawing too much suspicion so he elected to knock her alarm clock off her nightstand and hide under her bed before she could wake up and discover him.

The noise of the clock clattering to the ground worked in waking up Chloe and allowed her to make it to her exam on time.

Chloe was more than adequately prepared for the test. She breezed through it while other officers were left scratching their heads and weren’t even half way done by the time she had finished.

Even though she knew she did good on the exam, it was still a relief to get the official word that she had passed. The lieutenant announced her test results to the whole precinct, earning her dirty looks from Malcolm and his gang and a pat on the back from Dan.

“Well, done! I’m so happy for you, I always knew you could do it! I guess I’m gonna have to get used to calling you Detective Decker,” Dan said.

“Nah, I’ll always be Chloe to you,” she said, in an attempt to flirt.

“Ok, cool. I’ll see you tomorrow. Congrats again, Chloe!” 

Lucifer was hiding among the crowd in the precinct and felt his chest swell with pride when the lieutenant announced that Chloe had made detective. He couldn’t help but be proud of the part he played, however small, in turning his human into his detective.

She was still human, obviously so it wasn’t a perfect analogy but the point remained that Lucifer was thrilled for her.

His excitement for her newfound job title did come with a downside though. It caused him to make a mistake. A mistake that would ultimately change the nature of his relationship with her forever.

Chloe had just been assigned her first official case as a detective and she was eager to solve it. She took it home with her, as she had done many times before with cases that weren’t hers.

Just like before, Chloe worked on the case well into the night and ended up falling asleep at her desk with the file open in front of her.

Lucifer’s over-eagerness to see Chloe succeed caused him to lurk over her shoulder once she had fallen asleep to try to see what her case was about. 

He wanted to help her solve this case more than almost anything and was just too damn curious, so, instead of listening to his better judgement, he hovered over Chloe’s sleeping form and tried to read the case file over her shoulder.

Maybe he brushed up against her unknowingly or maybe she could just sense his proximity but either way, before he could hide, Chloe whipped out her handgun from under her desk.

In one swift motion, she stood up from her chair, turned around, cocked the hammer and pressed the barrel of the gun to his forehead.

“Who are you and what the hell are you doing in my house?” Chloe demanded to know.

Of all the things Lucifer could’ve said in that moment, all that he could come up with was, “bollocks.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys are ready because this is the longest chapter yet. Here's over 6k words, enjoy ;)

“I’ll ask you one more time,” Chloe said, pressing the gun harder into his forehead, “who are you and what the hell are you doing in my house?”

Lucifer knew that he had been caught. There was no point in lying and he never lied anyways so he took a deep breath and told her the truth.

“My name is Lucifer Morningstar and I’m your guardian angel. I’m here to protect you from harm and ensure your safety until your natural death.”

There were a lot of things that Chloe could’ve focused on from those two short sentences but what proved to be the sticking point was his name.

“Wait a minute, isn’t ‘Lucifer’ the name of the devil?” she said, still not lowering her gun.

“That’s correct. I am the devil. Fallen archangel, banished to rule hell for all eternity. Or at least I used to be an archangel. I got demoted,” he said, hanging his head in shame, “now I’m trying to earn back my place at the table and I need to keep you safe in order to do that.”

A small part of Chloe’s brain wanted to believe him. It sure would make a lot of sense with her constant feeling of someone watching her and the criminals showing up giftwrapped for her, sometimes literally with a bow. 

That small part of her brain was telling her that what he was saying wasn’t completely insane and it would answer a lot of the questions that she had been having lately, but a much larger part of her brain was short-circuiting at the thought of angels being real.

Chloe had never really been religious. There was a time in high school where she tried out Buddhism because her boyfriend wanted her to convert but she was never really that into it. 

Her mom was an atheist and Chloe considered herself agnostic so the idea that angels existed, and that she had a guardian angel, and that he was apparently the devil too, somehow??? It was all too much for her to handle. It was much easier to live in denial and to just write him off as crazy so that she could keep her current worldview intact. 

“Yeah, no, you’re crazy,” she declared, finally lowering the gun, “I’m gonna go ahead and assume that you are just a mentally ill man that wandered into my house so I’m not gonna shoot you but please leave and never come back or else I _will_ have to file a restraining order against you.”

Lucifer opened his mouth to protest but then closed it again without uttering a word. It was a well-known fact that guardian angels weren’t supposed to be seen by their charge and he had just broken that cardinal rule. 

He thought that he had messed up everything by being discovered but maybe he could make her denial work to his advantage. 

Maybe he could just roll with what she desperately wanted to believe and continue to watch her from a distance like nothing even happened.

“Terribly sorry. Won’t happen again,” he muttered and scurried out of her house. Lucifer closed the door behind him and leaned against it, letting out a huge sigh of relief.

Lucifer thought he was the luckiest devil alive. He didn’t know if deep down, Chloe truly believed that he was just an insane human, but if she wanted to live in denial, that was her choice. 

He told her the truth so he didn’t break his vow of never lying and he wasn’t going to get in trouble for being seen by her. Everything was coming up Lucifer.

Lucifer did a quick lap around the block in case she was watching him leave and then doubled back and flew up to her roof. He perched on the apex of her roof and savored the feeling of the crisp night air on his skin as he kept guard from above.

Meanwhile, Chloe was inside washing her face and changing into pajamas. She tried to put the strange visitor out of her mind but she just kept coming back to what he said. 

By the time she crawled into bed, the rational part of her brain had won out and convinced her that there was no such thing as angels or devils. Her subconscious, however, wasn’t on the same page. That night, she had dreams about a handsome angel that looked much like the intruder, sweeping her off her feet and flying her through the streets of Los Angeles. 

A few weeks passed and Lucifer succeeded in laying low and staying out of sight. Chloe solved her first official case as a detective without Lucifer’s help, earning her praise from the lieutenant and from Dan.

“Great job closing your first case, Chloe,” Dan lauded when he passed her in the precinct. 

“Oh, thank you! Yeah it feels good to have my first case in the books. I would hate it if I couldn’t close my first one. Like it would just be hanging over my head forever, like the one that got away, you know? Ha, that would suck, so I’m glad I solved it,” Chloe rambled, kicking herself for sounding so stupid in front of Dan.

“Anyways, me and some of the boys are going out for drinks at the Paddock tonight after work. You should come when you get off your shift. We can celebrate you closing your first case. First round is on me.”

“Yeah, awesome! Sounds good, ok, perfect. I’ll see you there!” Chloe called as Dan was already walking away.

Over the past few weeks of laying low, Lucifer had once again grown bored with his duties. 

He missed the thrill of being close to Chloe; the way his heart would leap out of his chest and electricity would fizzle over his skin when he got near her. He missed the danger of nearly getting caught and most of all, he missed the look on Chloe’s sleeping face when he carried her to bed.

Even though it had been a few weeks since the incident and Chloe was acting like nothing changed, he knew that he had to give it a little more time before he started following her more closely, so for now, he waited for her outside the precinct. 

When Chloe left for the night, he took wing and followed her car from the skies. 

To his surprise, Chloe didn’t drive immediately home like she did most nights, nor did she make a rare trip to the grocery store. Instead, she drove to a bar. Lucifer grinned, pleased that his detective was finally starting to loosen up and learn how to have some fun.

Lucifer landed in an alley behind the bar and tucked his wings away behind a dumpster before strolling into the bar and taking a seat at a dimly lit table in the back. It gave him the perfect vantage point to scope out the bar for threats without being seen.

He saw Chloe enter and his heart skipped a beat. This was the closest he’d been to her in weeks so naturally he was excited to see her, but he also suspected that he was picking up on her emotional state through their connection.

Chloe smiled and waved to a group of men at the bar and took a seat next to them. He tuned his supernatural hearing into their conversation and quickly surmised that the other men were detectives as well.

“Hey, Chlo! I’m glad you could make it!” Dan greeted, “what are you drinking?”

“Uh, I’ll do a water,” Chloe said, addressing the bartender.

“Oh, come on, seriously? You gotta have something a little stronger than that! We’re celebrating and I’m buying so what do you want?”

“Ok, uh, how about a vodka martini?” 

“Coming right up,” the bartender said.

Dan, Chloe and the rest of the detectives sipped their drinks at the bar for the next few hours.

Chloe and Dan made small talk mostly about work, but when they tried to get into more serious topics, Chloe was miffed to find out that they didn’t have very much in common. Their conversation came to a screeching halt at multiple times during the evening and surprisingly, the alcohol didn’t seem to help their discussion along at all.

Lucifer listened to them all night, nursing a whiskey from his table in the corner. He listened to all of Chloe’s failed attempts at flirting and observed Dan’s uninterested reaction. While Lucifer thought that her dorkiness was somewhat endearing, he wished that he could swoop in and save her from her own awkwardness, or at least give her some advice on how to flirt properly.

As the night was winding down, Lucifer’s internal alarm went off, alerting him that trouble was coming. He was instantly jolted to attention and scanned the room for threats. He noticed a large man walking up to Chloe at the bar and suspected that he was the source of the problem. 

Malcolm’s partner Anthony Paolucci approached the bar and ordered a beer, greeting everyone in the group, “Hey, Ken, Jordan, Dan… bitch,” he said when he got to Chloe.

He grabbed his beer and left before Chloe could say anything. Much to her chagrin, Dan didn’t say anything in her defense either. 

Chloe didn’t know if she even really wanted Dan to defend her honor. A part of her reasoned that she was a big girl who could handle herself just fine but another part of her wanted Dan to punch Paolucci in the face.

Across the bar, Lucifer had heard Paolucci’s comment and was clenching his jaw and his fists in anger. Lucifer simply couldn’t tolerate that man’s rude behavior, especially when it was directed towards _his_ human. 

Anthony walked over to a table near Lucifer and set his beer down. Seeing an opportunity, Lucifer got up from his seat and approached him.

“Excuse me, I have no idea who you are but I think you’re a complete sack of arse!” Lucifer gave Paolucci a wicked right hook, catching the man off guard, causing him to stumble backwards several feet. 

Once he regained his bearings, Anthony was furious and turned his anger into violence, punching Lucifer in the face. Unfortunately for Paolucci, punching Lucifer was like punching a brick wall and the bones in his hand broke with an audible crack. Lucifer laughed at Anthony’s misfortune and goaded him further, “come on, is that all you got! Take another swing, I dare you!”

Perhaps if Paolucci was a little more sober he would’ve walked away and cut his losses, but since he was already bordering on drunk, he decided to punch Lucifer with his other hand only to experience a similar result. 

Paolucci used his non-broken hand to sock Lucifer in his long nose, putting all his weight behind the punch. 

For Lucifer, it felt like someone threw a pillow at his face. The punch didn’t even cause him to recoil, but the impact caused Paolucci’s fingers to snap like twigs. He bellowed out in a mixture of pain and anger but continued to throw himself at Lucifer. He was a persistent bastard, Lucifer would give him that, but a drunk cop was still no match for Lucifer Morningstar, even as a guardian angel.

Lucifer pushed against Paolucci’s chest, barely exerting any effort at all, and the man went flying across the room, crashing into a table. While Anthony was regaining his bearings, Lucifer finished off the last of his whiskey. When Paolucci got up and started running towards him again, Lucifer threw his empty whiskey glass at him, smacking him squarely in the forehead. 

By now their bar fight had attracted the attention of some of the other patrons at the bar and those who weren’t joining in the fight and smashing beer bottles over heads were cheering on the pugilists and placing bets on who would win.

Chloe and Dan turned in their seats at the bar to see what all the commotion was about. The crowd of onlookers obstructed their view but they didn’t need to see who was fighting to tell that it was a bar fight.

“Oh my God, is that Paolucci?” Dan asks when he spots a flash of the man through the crowd, “I think it is, but who the hell is he fighting with?”

Chloe leaned in her seat to try to get a better view but was unsuccessful, “I dunno, I can’t really see anything.”

The fight went on for a few more minutes before the bar’s owner came out to break things up.

“Stop, stop, stop!” he yelled, “you two, hit the road before I ban you both for life. Jesus Christ, Anthony?” the owner yelled when he recognized one of the fighters, “I thought that having you cops around would prevent this sort of thing but you’ve just made it worse. Get out of my sight, now!”

Lucifer and Paolucci shuffled out the door along with a few other people that engaged in fighting. 

Lucifer knew that he drew too much attention to himself by starting a bar fight but he just couldn’t help himself when it came to Chloe. He was hardwired to protect her so when her honor was in question, he felt the need to defend her.

Lucifer couldn’t go home like the other fighters that got kicked out since Chloe was still inside, but he couldn’t risk going back inside and getting recognized either. 

He eventually decided on a compromise. 

Lucifer looked both ways, checking to make sure the coast was clear before unfurling his wings and flying upwards. He perched on the fire escape of the building across from the bar that overlooked its back alley. This way he could see Chloe when she came outside but wouldn’t risk being spotted.

Inside the bar, Chloe’s conversations with Dan hadn’t gotten any more riveting. 

After the bar fight, they resorted to talking about the weather and Chloe was starting to get tired. It was way past her bedtime and all she could think about was flopping into bed and burrowing under her warm covers.

“Well, thanks again for everything, Dan. It was nice celebrating with you but I think I’d better head out.”

The alcohol was out of her system by now and she knew that she was good to drive.

“Aw, headed out so soon? I guess I’ll see you at work. Thanks for coming out tonight, Chlo, and congrats again on solving your first case as a detective!”

“Thanks! Alright, I’ll see you at work.”

Chloe walked out of the bar feeling a little bummed. She had dreamt of going on a date with Dan ever since they met but there just weren’t any sparks between them tonight. 

She had been crushing on him for so long that her expectations were through the roof when it came to what a date with him would be like. Chloe wondered if maybe that was the problem. 

Her expectations were just too damn high; there was no way any guy could live up to them. Maybe she should just keep trying to make things work with Dan even if tonight didn’t go as well as expected.

After all, she didn’t have a lot of other options and she wasn’t getting any younger, as her mom was fond of reminding her. She decided to write off tonight as a fluke and hoped that the next time would be different.

Chloe gripped her keys and walked through the back alley to get to her car. She was so lost in her thoughts about Dan that she didn’t notice when three men in ski masks came up behind her.

“Give us all your money!”

“Money or your life, bitch!”

“The purse, now!” 

The trio shouted, startling Chloe enough to make her drop her keys. She reached for her gun but then remembered that she left it in her car. The muggers continued shouting at her and she heard their guns cocking so she slowly raised her hands and turned around to face them.

“Okay, okay,” she said, trying to keep her voice as calm and level as possible, “I don’t want any trouble.”

Lucifer had watched the men approach and when they made their intentions with Chloe clear, he sprung into action.

Lucifer jumped down and landed between Chloe and her would-be attackers with a soft thump.

“Walk away now, gentlemen, or else there _will_ be trouble,” Lucifer threatened. 

Lucifer could see the criminals weigh their options. The two on the ends were considering leaving and finding an easier mark, but the one in the middle, the one who called Chloe a ‘bitch’ and who was clearly the leader, was looking for a fight.

“Did you fail math or somethin’, buddy? There’s three of us and only two of you, plus the fact that we have guns, I’d say that adds up to you giving us all your money too,” the leader spoke up.

“I’m feeling merciful today, so I’ll give you one last chance. Leave now!” Lucifer commanded.

The leader’s only answer was to cock his gun’s hammer and thrust it into Lucifer’s face.

“You know, you really shouldn’t shove a gun in people’s faces,” Lucifer said with a small chuckle, “it’s terribly rude, not to mention it makes it too easy to do this!”

In one fluid motion, Lucifer grabbed the barrel of the gun and swung it, along with the entire man’s arm, down and away from him. Before the criminal could react, Lucifer kneed him in the gut so he doubled over and then gave him a nasty uppercut to the chin, all before he knew what was happening.

While the leader was groaning on the ground, the other two came at Lucifer, intent on getting justice for their fallen friend.

Chloe finally snapped out of her shock and rushed to go help her savior. The tag team worked in perfect harmony, while Lucifer had one of the criminals in a headlock, Chloe kicked him in the balls. The man dropped like a sack of potatoes and Lucifer stomped on his wrist and kicked the gun away so it skittered far out of reach.

The last mugger tried to get the jump on Lucifer but he was too quick. Lucifer dodged his attack and grabbed him by his long, greasy hair, which was poking out from under his ski mask. While his head was tilted back, Chloe punched him in the jugular and Lucifer kicked his legs out from underneath him.

With all three criminals writhing around on the dirty alley floor in pain, Lucifer’s work was done here. Unable to resist, he turned to Chloe and gave her a wink and a mock salute and said, “you’re welcome.”

Lucifer slid back into the shadows and with a flap of his powerful wings, he was gone. 

He didn’t go very far. He just flew up to the rooftops so he could observe Chloe from a safe distance and make sure she got home safely.

Chloe tried to process what just happened but she couldn’t.

She knew that her mystery savior was the same man that she had found in her bedroom that night, weeks ago, and she also suspected that he was the one fighting with Paolucci in the bar. The question was, why?

She was starting to think that he might be more than just a crazy stalker but she refused to believe that he was her guardian angel. There had to be a logical explanation out there that didn’t involve him being an angel or the devil or anything else that she didn’t believe in.

The best explanation that she could come up with was that he was some sort of superhero wannabe. 

He probably watched too many of those superhero shows and movies on TV, God knew there were enough of them lately, and then got attached to her for some reason and made it his mission to protect her. He was clearly a skilled fighter so maybe he knew karate, or ju-jitsu or something and wanted to help fight crime. The only part she couldn’t find an easy explanation for was, why her?

Why would this man decide to protect Chloe when there was a city full of people who needed it more than she did? She was a detective, after all. She knew how to take care of herself, mostly. 

Maybe he had been involved in a murder investigation and she didn’t know it. Maybe she solved the murder of one of his friends or a family member and he felt indebted to her and that’s why he was following her around. Or maybe he was just crazy and she was the object of his attention for no rhyme or reason.

Chloe called in backup to arrest the muggers and continued to mull over explanations while she waited for them to arrive.

When they finally got there, she told them what happened, leaving out the part about her mystery protector. She thanked the officers and drove home. 

Now that the rush of adrenaline from almost being attacked had worn off, she was dead tired and wanted nothing more than to go to bed.

Once she got home, she fell into a restless sleep with more dreams about tall, dark and handsome super hero angels.

A few weeks passed and Chloe put the incident behind her. She hadn’t seen or heard anything from her mystery man since his heroics in the alley. She still felt like she was being watched when she was outside after dark so she had a feeling that he was still watching her, just keeping his distance.

Even though she knew she had a stalker now, she felt safer with him around and never felt like she was in danger. She knew that he didn’t want to hurt her and it kind of felt good to know that someone had her back.

Despite making detective, no one wanted to be her partner. Malcolm had made it clear that if anyone tried to work with her, they would be on his shit list, and no one wanted to take that risk.

It might be kind of sad, but her mystery stalker was the closest thing she had to a partner right now.

“Decker, I’ve got a new case for you, this is a tough one,” Lieutenant Jones said one day, slapping a new case file on Chloe’s desk. 

Chloe opened the folder and skimmed the details.

“You’re putting me on the bomber case?” she questioned. Lately, someone had been planting bombs in office buildings around Los Angeles. They had been terrorizing the city for weeks and no one had been able to solve it.

“Is that a problem, Decker?”

“No, no problem. I just thought you would want a more experienced detective on a case that’s this high-profile but I’m more than up for the job.”

“All my ‘experienced detectives’ have given me jack. You might not have as many cases under your belt as they do but your closure rate is impressive. I’m trusting you with this one. I believe in you, Decker.”

“Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down,” she promised.

Chloe quickly got to work poring over every detail of the case. She had been following it on the news, and so far, twenty-one people have died. The bomber’s MO was to rig an office building with explosives at night and then detonate them when all the employees showed up for work the next day.

Currently, the detectives on the case hadn’t found any connection between the three buildings he had targeted and the working theory that he was a disgruntled former employee was starting to fall apart. 

Forensics found trace amounts of DNA on the bomb that they thought belonged to the killer but it was so contaminated with DNA from all the victims that they couldn’t find a match.

Chloe stayed up late into the night looking at the case file but kept coming up empty. She was getting nowhere on her own and wished that she had a second set of eyes that could find something she had missed or just another person to bounce ideas off of.

Chloe thought of her mysterious stalker man and wondered if he was nearby. 

She wasn’t getting anywhere by reading the same words over and over again so she decided to start talking out loud and pretended as if her protector was in the room with her.

“Alright Mr. Stalker Dude, I know you’ve been helping me on cases and I could really use your help on this one,” she said to an empty room.

Chloe’s words drifted through her open window and up to the roof where Lucifer was perched. 

At first he thought she was talking on the phone or something because she never had other people over, but when he tuned in his hearing to what she was saying, he nearly fell off the roof in surprise. How did she know that he was up here? 

He thought that he had been getting better at being quiet and he had kept his distance since their last encounter but clearly she hadn’t forgotten about him, even if she pretended like he doesn’t exist in public.

Lucifer didn’t know what to do. Should he even respond? Should he fly through her window or maybe ring her doorbell and formally introduce himself?

Luckily he didn’t have to decide because Chloe just went on talking before he could do anything.

“Okay, so this bomber has been planting explosives in office buildings around LA. He’s attacked three buildings so far and killed twenty-one employees. Forensics have all been inconclusive and the detectives can’t figure out a motive or connection between the places he targeted,” she summarized all the facts from the beginning. “The current theory is that he’s a former employee at all three office buildings but my gut is telling me that that’s wrong.”

Lucifer listened to her attentively and tried to follow the facts as she continued.

“There was no sign of forced entry so that likely means that whoever planted bombs in those offices had keys to the building. So who would have keys to the building besides employees?”

Lucifer didn’t know a ton about the world since he’d been trapped in hell for so long. What little he did know about earth came from talking to recently departed souls that ended up in his kingdom, but one thing that he knew for sure is that criminals can be crafty, and just because a door wasn’t kicked in, didn’t mean it was an inside job.

“Hmm, I guess someone could’ve picked the lock if they knew how…” Chloe trailed off, somehow sensing Lucifer’s feeling that it was someone from the outside. “Oh wait, scratch that, the second building used electronic key cards for entry so unless our bomber was also a super hacker, it probably was someone with a key card. Oh, how have I not noticed that before? It says that their system registered a key card was used to open the front door at 10:01pm the night before the bomb went off! Whoever owns that key card must be the bomber!”

Lucifer was pleased that Chloe was on the verge of a breakthrough and sat with bated breath on the rooftop, hoping that she would continue to narrate her thought process to him.

“Ugh, of course they use outdated technology so we can’t track whose key card was used that night. Okay, this is good though because we know that they had a key card and they must’ve had keys to the other two buildings as well. Company policy is for employees to turn in keys when they get fired or quit so unless they made illegal copies somehow, my guess is that it’s someone who has access to all three buildings. Okay, so who would have keys to that many buildings and could come and go late at night without drawing suspicion?”

Lucifer thought about all the miscreants he tortured in hell and something that Chloe said clicked with him. He had once met a chap down in hell who was a janitor and he was able to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of electronics from the company he was hired to clean. Instead of cleaning up, he had cleaned them out, all because he had a key to the place and no one paid attention to the cleaning crew. 

Lucifer thought with all his might about janitors, maids, and cleaning up until Chloe came to the same conclusion. Whether it was due to their connection or because she was just that smart, Lucifer didn’t know.

“Janitors!” Chloe shouted, “they have keys to all the buildings they service and often work at night! Let me just check really quick…” Chloe did some typing on her computer and shuffled through some papers until she found the information she was looking for. “That’s the connection! All three buildings are serviced by a company called EZ Klean Environmental Services.”

“Well done,” Lucifer whispered to himself, smiling at her cleverness.

Chloe was so excited by her discovery that she decided to call the company right away. She didn’t think that anyone would answer since it was the middle of the night, but she had to try.

“EZ Klean Environmental Services, how can I help you?” a voice on the other end answered, much to Chloe’s surprise.

“Uh hi, yes. This is Officer, er, Detective Decker with the LAPD. I was wondering if you could tell me who was working the night of the thirteenth? They would have been cleaning the office building on Wilshire Boulevard in Century City.”

“Wait, isn’t that the building that blew up? You said you were with the LAPD, oh God, do you think we had something to do with it?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. If you could get me a name, you might be able to save a lot of lives.”

Chloe thought that he might stonewall her at first and say that he couldn’t release employee information without a warrant, but he seemed more than willing to help.

“Of course, give me one second.” Chloe heard keystrokes on the other end of the line and a couple of minutes later, he had a name for her, “Zeke Nolan. He was the employee on shift that night.”

Chloe asked him to check the other two nights and sure enough, Zeke was cleaning both buildings the night before they exploded too.

“That can’t be a coincidence!” Chloe exclaimed, “can you get me his address?”

“Sure, detective. One second… oh no.”

“What?”

“It says that he’s clocked in right now. He’s cleaning an office building in Santa Monica right now. You don’t think…” he trailed off.

“I need the address of the building he’s cleaning right now!” Chloe insisted.

The employee read off the address and Chloe wrote it down. She put it into her phone and realized that it wasn’t too far of a drive from where she lived so she hopped in her car and sped off.

Lucifer followed her from the skies, a sense of dread coming over him. His guardian angel senses were telling him that danger awaited and he needed to be on high alert to make sure Chloe was safe.

Chloe called in backup on the drive over but she knew that she would get there before they would.

When she arrived at the address, she saw there was already a van with an EZ Klean logo on it in the parking lot. 

Chloe slowly approached the building and pushed on the door. It was unlocked so it swung open easily, allowing Chloe entry.

Chloe slowly pulled her gun out of its holster and walked into the building. She went up the stairs to the second level and a sense of foreboding came over her and only increased with every step she climbed.

Chloe found nothing on the second floor so she went up the stairs to the third floor. There wasn’t another soul on the third or the fourth floor but Chloe’s gut told her that Zeke was in the building.

Finally, on the last floor, Chloe heard someone scuffling around. She raised her gun and slowly entered the office space. 

The air was practically humming with tension and Chloe knew that something was about to go down.

“Zeke Nolan?” she announced, “Detective Chloe Decker, LAPD. Come out with your hands up.”

Chloe finally caught sight of the janitor. He had a scraggly beard and unkempt hair and was looking up at Chloe with crazy eyes that made her even more nervous than she already was. When she got a better look, she noticed that he was standing over a box with colorful lights and wires coming from it. It was a bomb.

“Don’t come any closer or I’ll blow us both up!” Zeke shouted.

“Okay, it’s okay. See? I’m not coming any closer,” she said as calmly as she could manage, trying to remember her de-escalation training, “why don’t you talk to me, Zeke. Tell me why you want to blow up this building?”

“Because they’re assholes. Each and every one of them.”

“Who are? The people that work here?” 

“Here. At the other buildings. Everywhere. No matter where I go, they treat me worse than the garbage they leave lying around and I’m sick of it!”

“Hey, hey, Zeke, I get it, I do. I work with some assholes too,” Chloe said, Malcolm coming to mind, “but killing them isn’t going to solve anything. Besides, what about the innocent people that died in the explosion? Surely not everyone was mean to you?”

Lucifer had followed Chloe into the building and was watching her try to deescalate the situation from the doorway. He was hoping that she could talk Zeke down without him detonating the bomb but Lucifer was ready to intervene in case he was needed.

“Well there was…” Zeke started to say before a new wave of anger came over him, “no, they all deserved to die. All of them. And they will!”

“Zeke…” Chloe started to say. Meanwhile, Lucifer was slowly starting to creep further into the room and Zeke caught sight of him.

“Hey, hey, stop! Don’t come any closer, I’m warning you!”

“I’m not coming any closer,” Chloe said, slightly confused, “see? I’m right where I’ve been the whole time.” 

Lucifer froze where he was standing and hoped that that would help to calm the bomber down. 

Chloe brought up his family, hoping that she could use them to convince Zeke to surrender.

“Don’t you have someone in your life who cares about you? Your mom? Your dad? Maybe a brother or sister? Do you really think that they would approve of what you’re doing here, Zeke? You can still walk away. It’s not too late. Please.”

Zeke’s facial expressions softened and Chloe could tell that she was starting to get through to him. It almost worked. Right when Zeke was about to put down the detonator, a police siren whooped down on the street below and he became enraged all over again.

“You bitch! You called the police on me?!?” he snapped, “you’re just like the rest of them, which means that you deserve to die too.”

“No!” Chloe shouted as Zeke reached for the trigger. Chloe started to lunge for the trigger even though she knew she would never get there in time. 

“Chloe!!!” Lucifer shouted. In the blink of an eye he bounded across the room and unfurled his wings.

Lucifer wrapped his arms around her waist and tugged her against his chest. 

He didn’t have time to savor the feeling of her body pressed against his. He barely had time to flap his wings and smash through the glass windows before the bomb went off. 

Lucifer used his body and wings to shield Chloe from the glass shrapnel and tightened his hold around her hips. He could feel the heat from the explosion behind him singe his wings but he didn’t look back. 

He flapped a few more times before gliding down slowly into an alley. He set her down but continued to hold onto her until he was sure that she could stand up without falling over. Flying could be very disorienting for a human, especially when they didn’t know it was coming, so it was a minor miracle the Chloe hadn’t thrown up yet.

“Shh shh shh, you’re okay,” he comforted, “you’re alright.”

Lucifer absentmindedly picked the glass shards and debris out of her hair. He inspected her face and neck for injuries and was relieved when he found none. 

He reached up to pick another shard of glass out of her hair but this time she took a step back. 

Lucifer’s wings were still out and they were all Chloe could focus on.

“My eyes are up here, darling,” he quipped, using humor to try to diffuse a serious situation.

Chloe continued to stare at his wings, not hearing him, as her brain worked overtime to put everything together.

Finally, the last puzzle piece snapped into place and she could see the whole picture.

“Everything you told me that night I found you in my house was true, wasn’t it?”

Lucifer nodded slowly, confirming her words.

“It’s all true,” she said in a whisper before repeating herself a little louder, “it’s all true.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I was feeling the holiday spirit so I decided to resolve the previous chapter's cliffhanger by updating early! Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and Happy New Year to all and to all a good night ;)

Chloe didn’t get much time to process this new information as officers quickly stormed the scene and started establishing a perimeter.

“I’m sorry I can’t stick around, but I’ll explain everything later, I promise,” Lucifer said, giving her hands a quick squeeze.

“Wait,” Chloe tried to get him to stay but she was met with a whoosh of air as he flew off.

A few seconds later, an officer that Chloe went to the academy with came around the corner.

“Chloe?!? Oh, thank God. We thought you were dead! She’s over here guys!” the officer shouted to the other cops. 

A half a dozen unis came and were all glad to see Chloe alive and well.

“I’m here to take your statement,” one of the officers announced.

Chloe somehow managed to compose herself long enough to give a coherent statement. 

She told the officer how she figured out that the same cleaning company serviced all three of the previous buildings and how she called the company to get the name of the employee on shift during those nights. 

She explained how that led her to Zeke Nolan and how the employee at EZ Klean told her where he was working tonight. Lastly, she recounted how she caught Zeke in the act and tried to talk him down but he decided to detonate the bomb, killing himself in the process.

The only part she lied about was how she escaped. She couldn’t very well tell them that her guardian angel flew her to safety at the last second, so instead, she said that she managed to get to the stairs and out of the blast radius just in time and then decided to wait in the alleyway across the street.

“Wow, we thought for sure you were dead. You sure are lucky. I guess someone up there is looking out for you.” The officer pointed at the sky to make his point, unbeknownst to him that Lucifer was sitting on the roof of the building, listening to their conversation below with a smile.

Chloe let out a chuckle that was bordering on hysterical and muttered under her breath, “you have no idea.”

When the officers had all the information they needed from her, they let Chloe go. The drive home was a blur. She was so distracted she could barely focus on the road. 

When Chloe got home she noticed that she had a text from Lieutenant Jones commending her on a job well done for solving the bomber case and telling her to take a day off and that she ‘better not even think about coming into work.’

The adrenaline had finally worn off and now Chloe’s lack of sleep was starting to catch up with her.

Chloe was so tired when she got home that she didn’t even notice the angel lurking in her living room and walked right passed him before falling into bed and passing out without setting an alarm.

Lucifer was waiting for her when she got home. He was prepared to explain everything to her but when she made a beeline for her bed and fell asleep, he decided that it could wait until tomorrow. 

He made himself comfortable in the big armchair in the corner of her living room. It was so comfortable that before he knew it, Lucifer was sound asleep.

He was woken up the next morning by a bright light and the sound of Chloe screaming.

“What the hell?!? You almost gave me a heart attack! Are you trying to kill me?” Chloe said, clutching her chest. She had slept in late and was still a little groggy but there was nothing like finding an angel, or anyone for that matter, in your house when you live alone to get the blood pumping.

“The opposite, actually,” Lucifer quipped before adding, “my apologies, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You couldn’t have, you know, knocked on the door like a normal person?” Chloe asked, her heartrate still coming down, “of course not, because clearly you’re not normal and you’re not even a person because guardian angels are real and I have one, apparently.”

“I’m sure you have questions and I would be happy to answer any and all of them. Can I make you a coffee first? Or perhaps something stronger?” he asked, eyeing her liquor cabinet. 

“Coffee’s fine,” Chloe replied and waved her hand toward the kitchen.

Lucifer quickly got to work in the kitchen while Chloe made herself comfortable on the couch. A few minutes later, he returned with two mugs of coffee. 

He handed one to Chloe and kept one for himself and then took a seat in the chair as far away from Chloe is possible. He had already scared her once today and didn’t want to make her uncomfortable by crowding her personal space.

“What would you like to know?” he asked.

“That night when I found you in my house,” she started, trying to remember all the details about their first encounter, “you said that you were the devil?”

“Correct. Lucifer Morningstar: devil, Prince of Darkness, Lord of Hell, at your service.”

“Okay, why the hell is the devil my guardian angel? I thought you were supposed to be evil or something?”

Lucifer’s face deflated at her words but he pushed past the hurt and answered her question.

“I’m trying to be better,” he admitted softly. “What I told you the other day is true. I’ve been trapped in hell since I fell from grace and desperately wanted to get out. To do so, I needed to redeem myself so I made a deal with my Dad. I took a demotion from archangel to guardian angel and agreed to protect you and ensure you live a long, happy life. If I succeed in keeping you alive until your natural death, then I’ll earn my Father’s forgiveness and will be restored to my former glory. I’ll be free to traverse heaven and earth as I please.”

“Wait, your Father…” Chloe said, trying to follow everything he was saying, “is God?”

“Correct. Capital ‘G’, creator of the universe and all-powerful know-it-all.”

“Wow. Yesterday I didn’t even believe in God and now I’m talking to his son. Who also happens to be the actual devil. And my guardian angel.”

“You’re taking it all surprisingly well,” he praised. “Humans aren’t supposed to know about the divine because it might influence their decisions in life if they know that Heaven is real. I was supposed to remain out of sight for the remainder of your life but I couldn’t even make it six months.”

“Yeah, no offense buddy, but you kinda suck at your job,” she teased.

“Hey, I’m new at this! I wasn’t exactly designed to be good at staying out of the spotlight!” he argued.

“Yeah, I suppose you’ve got a point. So, you haven’t been watching over me my whole life? Just this past half a year or so?”

“Correct.”

“So all the criminals I found hog tied? That was you, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“And all the times I felt like someone was watching me?”

“Me as well.”

“And that one case when I could’ve sworn I heard someone say ‘the coach is the killer’?”

“That was the first case I helped you solve,” he reminisced. 

“Wait, all those times when I fell asleep at my desk but woke up in my bed? You carried me to bed and tucked me in, didn’t you?”

“Well I couldn’t very well have you getting a crick in your neck! I’m in charge of protecting you and getting a proper night’s sleep is key to living a long and healthy life.”

A small smile crept across Chloe’s face when she realized just how many times he carried her to bed. 

She could’ve found it creepy that he had been in her bedroom but instead she found it oddly endearing. 

“You were the one that beat up Paolucci in the bar the other night after he called me a bitch? Right before you saved me from that mugging.”

“Yeah, I’m really not good at the whole ‘blending in’ thing,” he confessed abashedly.

“Am I missing anything else? Besides last night, obviously.”

Lucifer thought for a moment about just how involved he was in Chloe life these past few months and remembered two examples that she hadn’t mentioned yet.

“Well, on the morning of your detective’s exam, I knocked your alarm clock over so you would wake up in time to make it. Oh, and after that loathsome prick Malcolm made you cry, I was the one to console you and offer you bath tissue to dry your eyes.”

Chloe was especially touched by his last admission. She had thought about the person who comforted her in the women’s restroom a lot over the past few months. Every time a female officer was even passingly nice to her, she wondered if she was the one. 

Chloe still had a lot of questions but finding out that Lucifer was responsible for making her feel better that day told her a lot about his character. He might be the actual devil, but he was a good man with a good heart.

“So why didn’t I have a guardian angel before six months ago?”

“Not everyone gets a guardian angel nowadays. There are just too many people on earth and not enough angels, so only people that lead exceptionally dangerous or exceptionally extraordinary lives get one.”

“Which am I?”

“The file I was given on you doesn’t tell me about your future, but if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say both.”

Chloe smiled at the compliment and then asked, “wait, you have a file on me?”

Lucifer nodded, “all guardian angels are given a file with information about their charge. Everything from who’s a danger to your life to how you take your coffee is in it,” he said, lifting up his mug for emphasis.

“Woah, so you know everything about me?”

“Mmm, I wouldn’t say ‘everything’ but more than any human in your life knows about you.”

“What’s my favorite color?” she tested.

“Blue.”

“My favorite food?”

“Grilled cheese, but you’re also quite fond of lemon bars.” Just to prove his point, Lucifer continued to list off information he knew about her, “you also love bad nineties jams, are allergic to pine nuts, and you are hopelessly crushing on your coworker Daniel Espinoza.”

Chloe started to blush a little bit and was eager to change the subject, “okay, so you know a thing or two about me.”

“Sorry, I can’t help it. Photographic memory,” he said with a shrug.

“That’s so cool! I always wished I had a photographic memory. What other superpowers do you have?” she wondered.

“Well, besides flying, I’m faster, stronger, and have better senses than humans but I’m actually handicapped quite a bit compared to my true form. Archangels are even stronger and faster than guardian angels and we all have a special gift specific to our personality. Mine was drawing out people’s desires, which wasn’t very helpful in hell,” he explained.

“What was is like down there? In hell?” she clarified with a whisper.

“It’s not exactly a vacation destination,” he remarked, “so even though my abilities are dampened, I much prefer to be up here with you than still down there.” Chloe smiled at his compliment and let him keep talking. “Time works differently in hell so 6 seconds down there might feel like 6 months up here, which made my punishment all the more agonizing. Hell can run just fine without me. It existed before I ruled it and doesn’t need a whole lot of guidance.”

“How does one end up in hell?” she asked.

“Guilt,” he answered simply before elaborating, “when souls feel guilty, they drive themselves down to hell when they die. Most souls have an individualized hell loop that replays the worst moment of their life, the thing they feel guiltiest about, over and over again.”

“Most souls?” she asked.

“The ones that don’t feel guilt; truly the worst of the worst, they have to be dragged down to hell. That’s where the demons come in. If someone doesn’t feel guilty but clearly deserves hell, like a psychopath, for instance, demons torture them the old-fashioned way.”

“How do you fit into all that?” Chloe asked cautiously.

“As king, I was more of a delegator; assigning demons to certain tasks, telling them to change up the torture when it wasn’t working as well, et cetera. But I’ll admit, my hands aren’t entirely clean,” he hung his head in shame, “I’ve personally tortured my fair share of souls. I am the devil, after all.”

Chloe thought that she should be more scared of him than she was, but she just couldn’t bring herself to see this man as a monster. 

Sure, he punished the guilty, but wasn’t that kind of what she was doing too? Putting criminals behind bars? And it sounded like his system was a lot more fool-proof than the American legal system so it’s not like he was punishing people that were actually innocent.

At least she hoped not. 

A sickening feeling passed over her, causing her to ask her next question.

“You said that humans weren’t supposed to have proof of the divine but I do. Does this mean I’m gonna go to hell?”

“Absolutely not!” he shouted, startling Chloe a little bit, “simply knowing that there is a heaven and hell is not enough to condemn you to eternal damnation. I know your heart and I know that you, Detective Chloe Jane Decker, are a good person. You have nothing to feel guilty about.”

“But what if I do feel guilty about something when I die?”

“I won’t have it. Even if by some mistake you do end up in hell, I will personally fly you to the gates of Heaven and I won’t stop knocking until they let you in.”

Chloe was moved by how passionate he was and thought that maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to have the devil on her team. 

Chloe was done talking about heavy topics and wanted to enjoy the rest of her day off.

“So, what does an angel like you like to do for fun?” she asked, realizing about half way through that it sounded like a cheesy pick up line.

“My job is to protect you. I go where you go and I keep you safe from harm,” he answered, slightly confused. He wasn’t allowed to have fun. Fun wasn’t going to earn him his Father’s forgiveness and gain his redemption.

Chloe rolled her eyes at his answer, “if you weren’t tasked with guarding me, what would you be doing right now?”

“I… I would still be in hell…” he said, not really knowing how to answer her question.

“Okay, that’s it. You clearly don’t know what ‘fun’ is so come on, we’re going out.”

“Wha… where are we going?”

“The Santa Monica Pier,” she said with a smile.

Chloe put on her shoes, grabbed her keys and ushered Lucifer outside to where her car was parked.

When he got in her passenger seat and she told him to buckle up, he started struggling with the seatbelt. He knew what they were and how to use them, in theory, but he didn’t have much practice with them.

“I don’t see why I need to wear one, I’m immortal, it’s not like a car crash can kill me,” he huffed, still fumbling with the buckle.

“Yeah well you might be immortal but I’m a cop and it’s the law,” Chloe said. She watched him struggle for a few more seconds before taking mercy on him. “Oh for Pete’s sake, here!” Chloe reached across and buckled him up like a child. She smoothed the strap across his chest, and then realized how close she was to him.

“Thanks,” his breath tickled her neck and she pulled back into her seat a little too fast.

“No problem,” she muttered and put her car into drive.

When they arrived at the Santa Monica Pier, Chloe looked at Lucifer’s expression of awe as he took in the scene before him.

There were bright, flashing lights, a crowd of sticky children running this way and that, the smell of funnel cake and hot dogs mingling with the salty ocean air and the sounds of people screaming in delight as they rode the roller coaster or won a prize.

Chloe smiled at the look of childlike wonder on his face and asked, “where do you want to start first?”

“Wherever you want to go, I’ll follow,” his answer was still very businesslike and Chloe wanted to see him loosen up a bit.

“Oh, come on, surely something is calling your name. One of the rides? A game? Maybe grab some food? What are you drawn to, Lucifer?” 

“You,” he answered, remembering that he forgot to mention one of his angel powers earlier.

Chloe’s heart skipped a beat. She was flattered. It had been ages since a hot guy had shown any interest in her, but they had just met and she wasn’t sure why he was flirting with her all of a sudden. 

“Excuse me?” maybe she had heard him wrong.

“I forgot to mention earlier, one of my powers as your guardian angel is that I’m drawn to you. It’s like there’s a compass in my nose and you’re true north. If I’m ever too far away from you, it starts to tingle and points me in your direction. Also, I can sense when you’re in danger and I think our emotions are linked. At first I thought it was just one way, that I could only feel what you’re feeling, but now I’m beginning to suspect that it goes both ways.”

“Oh. Wow.”

Chloe took a few moments to process this new information and while it freaked her out a little bit at first, it was somewhat comforting that he knew where to find her if she was in danger. Her job was high-risk, recent events were proof of that, so it was nice to know that he had her back, always. 

Chloe’s life had been crazy the past twenty-four hours. Between nearly getting blown up and finding out the devil is her guardian angel and everything that entailed, she could use a little fun in her life. 

Chloe compartmentalized the new information into the pile in her brain labelled ‘to deal with later’ and decided that she was going to have a fun day at the pier.

“Come on, you look like you’d be good at Skee-Ball,” Chloe dragged Lucifer behind her, holding onto his hand to guide him. She told herself that she was just holding his hand so he wouldn’t get lost in the crowd of people but secretly, she enjoyed the way his big, warm hand fit around hers.

Chloe was right. Lucifer was good at Skee-Ball. He beat her twice and then beat her three times at air hockey.

“It’s just physics,” he said with a shrug when she complained that he was too damn good for not having ever played before.

Chloe got even though. She beat him at ring toss and squirt gun races twice. By the time Chloe ran out of quarters, they had accumulated enough tickets for a top-shelf prize.

“What should we get?” Chloe asked as they perused their prize options. The shelves were filled with knick-knacks that Chloe absolutely didn’t need, but that was the fun of it.

“Whatever you desire,” Lucifer said, causing Chloe to grin.

Finally, a splash of purple caught Chloe’s eye. On the top shelf was a smiling devil emoji plush pillow.

“Oh, that’s perfect,” Chloe grinned, “E7 please,” she told the attendant who pulled down the pillow and handed it to Chloe in exchange for her tickets.

“There ya go,” the attendant said, “you guys make a cute couple, by the way.”

“Oh, we’re not…” Lucifer began to protest but Chloe cut him off.

“Thanks,” she said simply and walked away. It had been ages since she had a boyfriend and for some reason, the fact that the booth attendant thought that they were dating thrilled her, so she decided to just go along with it.

Chloe had just enough money left for the two of them to go on a ride and she knew exactly which one to pick.

“Have you ever been on one before?” Chloe asked when they were in line for the Ferris wheel.

“I can’t say that I have,” he answered, swallowing hard.

“Wait, are you scared?” she asked, picking up on his emotions, “don’t tell me the big, bad devil is scared of a little Ferris wheel.” He didn’t say anything but the expression on his face spoke loud and clear. “Hey, there’s nothing to be scared of,” she comforted, “do you trust me?”

“Yes,” he said in a low voice.

“Good. ‘Cause we’re next.”

When Lucifer got into the Ferris wheel, he gripped the safety bar a little too hard at first, leaving hand shaped dents in the metal. 

He lessened his grip when Chloe touched his arm and settled into the seat next to him. Their car lurched when the wheel started to move. Lucifer instinctually reached for her hand and she rubbed comforting circles into the back of his hand.

Once the wheel completed one rotation and nothing bad happened, Lucifer became a bit more cavalier and started to loosen up.

“Huh, I don’t know what I was so afraid of. This isn’t half bad,” he mused, causing Chloe to chuckle.

“Isn’t this an amazing view?” she asked. Chloe had planned it so they would be on the wheel just in time to watch the sun set and take in the last of the warm orange and red light as it disappeared over the glittering horizon. 

“It’s a pretty great view,” he admitted, “but still not as good as flying.”

“What’s it like?” Chloe asked. When he had saved her from the bomb, she was caught up in a rush of adrenaline and it all happened so fast that she didn’t even have time to enjoy it before it was over.

“The feeling of the wind in my hair and feathers, the view from so high up; it’s what freedom feels like. I think I missed flying the most while I was trapped in hell,” he admitted. Chloe was too busy watching his face, she forgot to look around when they reached the top of the wheel again. “Maybe I’ll take you flying some time. Maybe when your life isn’t in danger from a trigger-happy bomber.”

“I’d like that,” Chloe murmured.

When the ride was finally over, they made their way back to the car and drove home.

Today had been fun and a much-needed distraction for both of them but now that the day was winding down, Lucifer didn’t know where that left them. He awkwardly stood around her living room until he finally worked up the nerve to say something.

“So what happens now?”

“Well,” she started, “how about instead of sneaking around me when I’m sleeping to solve cases, we work together.” 

Lucifer smiled and nodded in agreement. 

It was starting to get late and Chloe was about to get ready for bed.

“Do angels sleep?” she asked.

“We don’t need to, but it can certainly be a pleasant experience.”

“Would you like to sleep on my couch?” 

“Uh, erm, I better not,” Lucifer stammered, caught off guard by her kind offer, “I mean, it’s safer if I watch over you as you sleep.”

“Look, no offense buddy, I know you mean well and all, but watching me sleep is kinda creepy. Even if it is your job. So please, just take the couch. You can watch out for intruders from there.”

“Very well, master. I’m yours to command.”

“Yeah, no. Don’t call me that. ‘Chloe’ is fine.”

“That’s too informal,” he protested.

“Well then what are you gonna call me because ‘Miss Decker’ is out of the question. Reminds me too much of my mom,” Chloe said with a shudder.

Lucifer thought for a moment before offering, “detective?”

Chloe smiled. He had a way of making her title sound so much more winsome than it should be.

“Alright. Detective, then,” she agreed and began to make her way towards her bedroom.

Lucifer beamed at her approval and the two of them parted ways in search of sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my favorite chapter yet and I hope you guys will agree. Please leave a comment if you think my baseball metaphor is clever lol. Feel free to interact with me on twitter or tumblr too and happy reading ;D

The next day when Chloe woke up, she found Lucifer still sleeping on her couch. He was lying on his stomach and his wings were out. One was draped over the back of the couch and the other was relaxed so that the primary feathers brushed the floor about six feet away. 

His wings took up about half of the living room and made Chloe thankful that she didn’t live in a studio apartment.

In the dim morning light, she was drawn to the pearly white luminescent feathers and slowly shuffled towards his sleeping form on the couch.

She didn’t have much time to admire them when he had saved her from the bomber, but now that she had more time to look at them, she had to admit, they were gorgeous.

The bright white feathers emitted a soft glow of light and the downy feathers closest to his body looked so soft and warm and were just begging to be touched.

Chloe started to extend her hand but Lucifer must have sensed that someone was getting too close to him in his sleep because he jolted awake, his whole body jerking and his wings flapping.

Chloe jumped back but wasn’t quick enough to avoid getting a face full of feathers when the tip of his wing swiped her cheek.

“Ow,” Chloe said, partly in surprise and partly in pain. 

The tips of his primary feathers were not nearly as soft as his down feathers and they came across Chloe’s face with such force and speed that they managed to draw blood.

When Lucifer woke up and realized what he had done, he apologized profusely.

“Detective, I am so sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

“It’s okay, Lucifer, really. It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have snuck up on you while you were sleeping.” Chloe wiped away the blood from her cheek but the wound continued to bleed.

“No, no, no, this is all my fault. I should’ve been more careful. My whole job is to protect you! I can’t stand that I’m the one to cause you harm.”

“Seriously, Lucifer, I’m fine. It’s just a scratch, don’t worry about it.”

“It’s not fine, but it will be. I can fix this.”

“You don’t need—” Chloe began to say but Lucifer cut her off.

“Close your eyes,” he commanded. 

Chloe obeyed and the last thing she saw was Lucifer plucking a small feather from his wings.

She felt him cup her face in his hands and for a second she thought that he was going to kiss her. Instead, she felt the soft feather press against her cut and saw a bright light even through her closed eyelids. 

She felt the pad of Lucifer’s thumb brush her cheek tenderly and he whispered, “okay, you can open your eyes now.”

Lucifer was still standing close to Chloe but he had let go of her face. Chloe touched the spot where her cut had been but her hand came back clean and it didn’t sting anymore.

Chloe quickly found a mirror and examined her face only to find her clear skin unblemished. It was completely healed with no scars or scabbing. It was as if it had never been cut in the first place.

“What did you do?” she wondered.

“I healed you,” he said simply before adding, “my feathers have healing properties. I can heal just about any wound, no matter how serious, as long as the person isn’t already dead. They even work on other angels. The only catch is that my own feathers don’t work on me if I were to get wounded. I’m pretty durable though. I am truly sorry for having hurt you.”

“I forgive you, don’t beat yourself up over it. Besides, I’m fine now. More than fine, actually. I feel great and I haven’t even had my morning coffee yet!”

“Yes, I suppose divinity can have that effect on people.”

“Well, as much fun as yesterday was, it’s time to get back to work,” Chloe said.

“Our first real case together, how exciting!” Lucifer said in glee.

Chloe carried out her morning routine and got ready for work, enjoying some semblance of normalcy after everything she’d been through.

Lucifer watched Chloe move around the house, completing mundane human activities and felt a smile stretch across his face. He was so lucky to have such a beautiful human to look after and he was even luckier that she chose to accept him into her life instead of shunning him.

He wouldn’t have blamed her if she didn’t want anything to do with him. He was the devil, after all, but he was so glad she allowed him to stay.

He knew that guardian angels weren’t supposed to be seen by their human, much less become friends with them, but he figured that that ship had already set sail. Lucifer reasoned that it was okay for him to be more involved in her life as long as he accomplished his ultimate task of keeping her safe.

He also knew that Chloe didn’t have many, if any, friends at work and that she enjoyed his company. If he was being honest with himself, he quite enjoyed her company too.

He had more fun with her yesterday than… well, ever; and he fancied talking to her and interacting with her much more than sitting outside on her roof, alone, observing from afar. 

“What?” Chloe asked, self-consciously when she noticed him staring at her.

“Nothing,” he said, looking away from her after being caught, “are you ready to go?”

Chloe tugged on her boots and grabbed her keys, “now I am,” she said, and led him to her car.

“Okay, how is this gonna go down? How do we explain your presence in the precinct?” Chloe asked on the drive over.

“Well I just assumed I’d continue walking around the precinct. That way you can come find me if we need to talk but we won’t have to answer any questions like ‘how do you know each other?’”

“That’s actually not a bad idea…” Chloe said before picking up on his word choice, “wait, ‘continue’?” 

“Yes, I’ve been doing that for months now, gosh.”

“Wait, you’ve been walking around the precinct and I didn’t notice? And no one asked you what you were doing there?”

“Nope,” Lucifer said, popping the ‘p’, “it really is incredible how you humans won’t question the presence of a stranger as long as they look like they belong there. I’ve found walking with confidence to be quite effective, especially if you’re carrying a file while doing so.”

Chloe chuckled and chastised herself for not noticing him lingering around the precinct. She prided herself on her observation skills so it stung a little bit that he was right under her nose and she didn’t see him.

Chloe dropped Lucifer off a block away from the precinct and let him walk the rest of the way. Just in case anyone was looking, she didn’t want someone to see him getting out of her car. 

She pulled into the parking garage and took the elevator up to the precinct.

By the time she got to her desk, she spotted Lucifer circling the perimeter. She flashed him a quick smile and then looked away, not wanting to draw any unnecessary attention to him.

There was a new case waiting for her on her desk. She started reading over the details but soon got distracted.

Dan had walked in and he looked really good today. He had just gotten a haircut and was wearing a tight leather jacket that hugged his body in all the right ways.

Chloe found herself reading the same sentence over and over again in the file as her thoughts strayed to Dan.

Despite their bad ‘date’ at the bar where their chemistry seemed to fizzle out, Chloe still had hope that they could find their groove again. His new haircut was definitely helping things along.

Chloe needed to clear her head and put a little distance between herself and Dan. She needed to focus on the case but her eyes kept wandering to Dan who always seemed to be in her line of sight when she was sitting at her desk.

Chloe walked over to the break room and began to pour herself a mug of coffee.

“Sugar?” a familiar British voice said to her left. Lucifer had noticed her walking into the break room and followed.

“Thanks,” Chloe accepted.

“I noticed you staring at Detective Espinoza over there and then I felt the strangest feeling overcome me. Arousal,” he clarified, “he’s a good-looking chap, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think I’m the one attracted to him, am I?”

Chloe blushed and cursed their emotional connection.  
“There’s no need to be embarrassed,” he said, picking up on her latest emotion. “As your guardian angel my job is to protect you; all of you. That includes your heart. So if he’s what will make you happy, then I say ‘go for it’.”

“Thanks but I can’t seem to start a conversation with him without making a fool of myself. I just get so nervous around him, you know?”

“I see,” Lucifer considered her dilemma for a moment, “then shall I endeavor to, what do you kids call it these days, ‘hook you two up’?”

“How would you even do that?” Chloe asked, unable to keep the skepticism out of her voice.

“Oh, I have my ways. Trust me, detective.”

“Okay, whatever you say, cupid,” Chloe started to giggle and then it graduated into a full-throated laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Lucifer asked, starting to get defensive. 

“Nothing,” she said between laughs, “I just never thought I would have an angel as my wingman.”

“Do we have a new case?” Lucifer asked, clearly not as amused by her joke as she was.

“Uh, yeah. Yes, we do.”

“Wonderful, what’s it about?” 

“Uhhhh,” Chloe started, trying to remember what she just read, “a woman was murdered in her apartment.”

“Anything else? Suspects? Murder weapon? Her name, maybe?”

“Ummm, I’ll let you take a look at the file,” Chloe muttered, admitting defeat.

“My, this boy really does have you all in a tizzy, doesn’t he?” Lucifer said with a wide grin.

“Whatever,” Chloe grumbled. She took her coffee back to her desk, leaving Lucifer alone in the break room.

A few minutes later when Lucifer walked past her desk, she looked both ways to make sure no one was watching and then slid him the file. In one smooth motion, Lucifer picked up the file and continued walking.

With no file to distract her, Chloe had nothing better to do than stare at Dan. 

She watched him make phone calls while using his hand grip strengthener. The tendons in his hand flexed and flashed as he worked the tool with ease.

At that moment, Dan looked up and met Chloe’s eyes. She looked away quickly but the damage had already been done. Dan completed his phone call and began walking in Chloe’s direction. 

Chloe realized that there was no avoiding him so she stood up to meet him half way. 

When she was just a few steps away from him, Lucifer, with his nose buried in the file, bumped into Chloe from behind, causing her to stumble into Dan.

Dan caught Chloe in his arms in a position reminiscent of a romance novel cover. Dan didn’t remove his hands from her arms until he was sure she could stand upright.

“Hey, watch where you’re going, buddy!” Dan said as Lucifer walked away, his face hidden by the file folder.

“Sorry,” Lucifer muttered, not sorry at all, and kept on walking.

Dan shook his head at his rudeness but ignored him and turned to Chloe.

“Hey, how have you been?” Dan asked, “I haven’t seen you since before the bombing case. I heard he tried to kill you, are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I got out before the bomb went off.” Chloe hated that she had to lie to Dan. Technically what she said was true; the bomb didn’t go off until she was out of the building. She just left out the part where her guardian angel, who just so happened to be the guy that just bumped into her, flew her out the window or else she would be dead right now.

“Good, I’m glad you’re okay. The precinct just wouldn’t be the same without you around.”

Chloe smiled at his compliment. It was the nicest thing he’d ever said to her and it made her heart soar. She knew that their bad ‘date’ at the bar the other day was just a fluke and his comment just confirmed it. 

“Thanks, I’m glad to be back at work. So what have you been up to?” Chloe asked, trying to extend their conversation.

“Not much. Just work, you know,” Dan answered with a shrug.

“Cool, cool.” Chloe could feel the conversation slipping away from her but she couldn’t work up the nerve to ask him out.

Meanwhile, Lucifer was still walking around the precinct, pretending to read the file. He had already figured out who the killer was and was using his supernatural hearing to listen in on Chloe and Dan’s conversation. He knew that Chloe was starting to flounder and could feel how nervous and awkward she was getting. 

Lucifer focused all his energy on one emotion: confidence. He closed his eyes and drew in a breath until he felt calm, cool, and collected. He hoped his theory was right and that their emotional link went both ways so that he could give Chloe the confidence boost she needed to ask Dan out.

“Well, I guess I better get back to work…” Dan started to turn to make his way back to his desk but Chloe spoke up before he could get too far.

“Are you doing anything tonight?”

“Uh no, nothing after work.”

“Do you want to come over to my place and watch the Dodgers game? I have some beers in my fridge and we can order a pizza or something.”

“I didn’t know you were a Dodgers fan! I always pegged you as more of an Angels fan since you grew up closer to Anaheim.”

Chloe was pleased that he remembered that detail about her but he still didn’t answer her question.

“I grew up near Anaheim, yeah, but I’ve never really liked the Angels,” Chloe caught sight of her guardian angel over Dan’s shoulder. He put his hand over his heart and gave her a look of feigned hurt. Chloe shook her head slightly at his faux sadness and suppressed her smile. “Besides, you like the Dodgers more. So what do you say? Are you in?”

“Yeah, sure, that sounds like fun,” Dan agreed.

“Awesome! Here’s my address,” Chloe said, writing on a piece of paper quickly before handing it to him, “see you around seven?”

“See you then!” Dan accepted the paper and the two went back to their respective desks. Chloe gave a small fist pump and mouthed ‘thank you’ to Lucifer when she caught eyes with him. Lucifer winked and smiled back at her before getting back to the file.

Lucifer had snagged a pen and a stack of sticky notes from Chloe’s desk when she wasn’t paying attention and he used them to make notes in the margins of the file. 

Lucifer had come to the conclusion that her boyfriend had killed her and laid out his thought process via the sticky notes. When he was satisfied with his reasoning, he closed the file and made another pass by Chloe’s desk, sliding the file back to her when no one was looking.

Chloe’s daydreaming about her upcoming date with Dan was cut short when Lucifer returned the case file to her. She opened the folder and reviewed the notes written in his elegant script. His logic held up and Chloe agreed that the boyfriend was the most likely suspect so she called some officers to have him brought in.

A few hours later, she interrogated the victim’s boyfriend and he confessed to murdering his girlfriend. He was processed for booking and the case was closed before Chloe even took her lunch break.

She had to admit, it was nice having Lucifer on her team. He had a knack for crime solving and had been a huge help today. Granted, this case was a pretty easy one, but still. 

She had been too distracted thinking about Dan to even focus on the case while Lucifer had done all the work. Chloe vowed to pay more attention to the next case so that she wouldn’t have to rely solely on Lucifer.

Chloe spent the rest of the day doing paperwork. Even though the case was closed in just a few hours, there was still a mountain of forms and paperwork that needed to be filled out.

Chloe took periodic trips to the break room to talk to Lucifer. 

She apologized for not having anything more exciting for him to watch and thanked him profusely for his help closing the case. He insisted that he wasn’t bored out of his mind but Chloe knew that watching someone do paperwork was even less exciting than actually doing the paperwork itself.

When it was time to go home, Lucifer left first and Chloe met him a few blocks away from the precinct. He hopped in her passenger side and they drove the rest of the way home together.

“Are you excited for your big date tonight?” Lucifer asked.

“I don’t know why you ask when you can already sense what I’m feeling,” she teased. While it was still a little weird that their emotions were connected, Chloe supposed that it was no more weird than angels existing in the first place; and she was adjusting remarkably well to her new reality.

“Hey, I don’t know _why_ you’re excited!” Lucifer protested, “maybe you’re happy to be done with work for the day or maybe you just love to be stuck in LA 5 o’clock traffic.”

“Oh yeah, it’s definitely the second one,” she joked.

When they arrived at Chloe’s place, Lucifer helped her pick out clothes for her date.

“Ohhh, what about this one?” he asked, holding up a red cocktail dress.

“Lucifer, I’m watching a baseball game with pizza and beer, not going to some fancy gala. I need something a little more casual than that.”

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to look nice,” he grumbled before adding, “fine, fine, fine. Here, how about this one?” Lucifer held up a blue and white three-quarter sleeve shirt that she forgot she had. It must’ve been hiding in the back of her closet for years. 

“Now that… might work.” Lucifer handed the shirt to Chloe. She made a circular motion with her finger and he turned around to give her privacy.

Chloe changed into the shirt and some skinny jeans. She added a belt and then tucked the front of her shirt behind the belt, leaving the rest untucked. She mussed her wavy hair just a bit so that her locks were flowing freely over her shoulders and then touched up her lipstick.

“Okay, how do I look?” Chloe asked.

Lucifer turned around and his jaw immediately dropped. He looked her up and down in admiration and Chloe was close enough to him to see his pupils dilate. His heart rate increased and he took a big gulp to try and wet his suddenly too-dry throat.

Chloe didn’t need to have her emotions connected to his to tell that he thought she looked good. His reaction did wonders for her self-esteem.

“Beautiful,” he managed to choke out.

“I guess we have a winner then.” Chloe gave him a big, toothy smile and he smiled back, still trying to catch his breath.

Chloe and Lucifer spent the last hour or so preparing for Dan’s arrival. Everything was going smoothly until it was time to order the pizza.

Chloe wanted to have it there before Dan arrived so they could watch the game uninterrupted but when she tried to place her order online, she got an error message.

“Shoot!” Chloe exclaimed.

“What’s wrong?” Lucifer asked.

“It says that their delivery guy is sick tonight and due to short staffing, they’re not doing deliveries. It’s ‘pick up’ only tonight.”

“Not a problem, leave it to me. What’s their address?”

Chloe told him the address and he snagged the cash from her hand.

“Back in a jiffy,” he said, and with a whoosh of air, his wings unfurled.

It would’ve taken Chloe at least an hour to get there and back if she drove but Lucifer was back with a pizza box in hand less than ten minutes later. He set the box on the table and handed Chloe back her change.

“What, no tip?” Lucifer asked when she put the money back in her purse, “I thought that good pizza delivery boys got big tips. Or sex. At least that’s how it works in those wonderful internet movies.”

Chloe put her hand on Lucifer’s shoulder and got in his personal space. Lucifer’s mind turned to static as he short-circuited under her touch.

“Thank you, Lucifer,” she praised but removed her hand shortly thereafter. “This isn’t a porno but, funny enough, this is the part where I tell you to get in my bedroom. Do you remember the plan?”

“Yes, yes, I’m to stay in your bedroom and not make a sound. And if you two should need the bedroom, I’ll sneak out the window.”

“We’re not gonna have sex on our first date,” Chloe insisted.

“I’m just looking out for you, I’m here to protect you, after all. Speaking of protection, I left some for you on the nightstand. Alright, I hope you crazy kids have fun,” Lucifer said with a wink before making his way to her bedroom.

“Lucifer!” she scolded, shaking her head while smiling.

A few minutes later, there was a knock on her door. Chloe looked herself over in the mirror one last time before answering the door.

“Hello!”

“Dan, hi! How’s it going?”

“Good.”

“Good. It’s good to see you, come on in, the pizza’s here.”

Chloe and Dan ate pizza at her kitchen table and carried on shallow conversations about work, traffic, and the weather. When Dan started talking baseball stats, Chloe tried to follow along but she wasn’t as big of a baseball fan as she had let on so she mostly just nodded and agreed with Dan’s analysis.

When Dan offered to clear their plates after they finished eating, he noticed two coffee mugs in the sink leftover from when Lucifer and Chloe had coffee yesterday. He thought it was a little weird that only one of the mugs had a lipstick stain in Chloe preferred shade and even weirder that one mug had what looked like the remnants of black coffee in it, which Chloe hated. 

Dan ignored it though and put the plates in the sink before joining Chloe in the living room.

The second oddity he noticed was that it looked like someone had been sleeping on the couch. The cushions were indented in a way that looked like someone much taller than Chloe fell asleep on it.

When Dan was about to sit down on the couch, he also noticed that the cushions had a slight masculine scent lingering on them. A scent that clearly didn’t belong to Chloe. Dan’s curiosity finally got the best of him so he asked, “is there someone else staying here?”

He hoped that there was a perfectly logical explanation like a cousin or some other relative was in town and had been crashing on her couch but Chloe’s answer didn’t reassure him.

“What!?! Why would you say that?” Chloe asked, her eyes darting to the bedroom door, thinking that Dan somehow knew Lucifer was behind it.

“The couch looks slept in.”

“Oh, that’s probably from me. I take naps on the couch sometimes.” It wasn’t a lie, Chloe did take naps on the couch, she just hadn’t done it recently.

“Really? ‘Cause the cushions kinda smell like a man.”

Chloe didn’t know what to say so she just opened and close her mouth a few times and then elected to shrug.

Dan let it slide but the atmosphere between the two of them was noticeably tense. 

They watched the first few innings of the game and things seemed to be cooling off a bit until they weren’t.

Dan left to go to the bathroom and when he came back, he flopped down on the couch, which kicked up a small, white contour feather into the air.

The feather swirled a few times in the air before he caught it and examined it closer. Chloe didn’t have any down pillows or other home décor that could explain its presence and Chloe had tensed up when she saw the feather, which clearly belonged to Lucifer.

“Uh, did you get a bird or something?” Dan asked as he rolled the feather between his fingers.

Chloe knew that she had to come up with a reasonable explanation but she was a bad liar and she was already on thin ice with Dan tonight.

“Oh, no, I didn’t get a bird,” she started and then dug herself in deeper, “but I watched my neighbor’s bird when they were on vacation so that must be what the feather is from.”

“Oh that was nice of you, which neighbor?” Dan tested her.

“Oh you know, the one that lives over there,” Chloe pointed vaguely behind her.

“What’s their name?”

“Bird, uh, Bertha.”

“So you were watching your neighbor Bertha’s bird and that’s why you have feathers in your couch?”

Chloe nodded and hoped that he would just drop, it but he didn’t.

“You know what, I can’t do this anymore,” Dan announced and stood up abruptly. 

“Dan, come on…” Chloe tried to calm him down but he wasn’t having it.

“No, Chloe, I’m sick of it! I thought you genuinely liked me and I was willing to see where this thing between us was going but I can’t do that if you’re not going to be honest with me! Enough with the lying.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want you to be ‘sorry’, I want you to tell me the truth. Tell me that there’s an explanation for everything. Tell me that this is all some big misunderstanding. Tell me that there’s no need for me to overreact. Just tell me the truth,” Dan whispered the last sentence.

“You’re right. I haven’t been honest with you. Look, I can’t tell you everything but I have had a… friend, of sorts, staying over lately. I just didn’t know how to explain it.”

“Okay,” Dan said, relaxing a little, “sorry for snapping at you it’s just I’m tired of Malcolm and everyone at work lying.”

“It’s okay, let’s just watch the rest of the game and forget it even happened.”

“I’m sorry, Chloe,” he said standing up from the couch, “but coming here tonight was a mistake.”

“Wait, what?” right when Chloe thought things were starting to get back on track he pulled the rug out from under her.

“I shouldn’t have come here. This was all a big mistake.”

“Dan, wait!” Chloe called after him but he was already out the door.

Chloe sat stunned on the couch, unable to move. She hated that she had to lie to Dan about Lucifer. She hated that there was a big part of her life that she couldn’t share with him. She hated that he thought their date was a mistake but, most of all, she hated that she still had feelings for him and wanted to make things work.

Lucifer had heard the whole thing from the bedroom and could feel how upset she was so he jumped out the bedroom window, flew to the grocery store and bought two pints of Ben and Jerry’s.

Lucifer returned and slowly emerged from the bedroom, holding the ice cream behind his back.

When Chloe made eye contact with Lucifer he offered her the pint of Chunky Monkey and kept Cinnamon Bun for himself.

Chloe could have been mad at him for being the reason she had to lie to Dan but she felt nothing but gratitude for her guardian angel.

Just when she thought she had wiped away the last of her tears, a new wave of emotion overcame her from his kind gesture.

“I’m sorry, detective. You… you don’t feel upset anymore but I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he was confused because she was crying but their emotional connection told him that she was happy, which didn’t make sense to him. Maybe the thing was on the fritz. 

“No, no, I’m not…” Chloe tried to explain but gave up, “just shut up and come over here.”

Lucifer brought two spoons and their ice cream to the couch and Chloe put on a Netflix show for them to watch and try to forget about everything that happened tonight. 

Chloe pressed play and dug into her pint of Chunky Monkey.

As the ice cream melted, so too did all her troubles. 

“Give me a bite of yours,” Chloe said reaching her spoon across to take some of Lucifer’s ice cream.

“You’ve got your own!” he protested and tried to keep it out of Chloe’s reach.

“Come on, I just want one bite!” she countered and continued to prod her spoon in his direction. When she finally succeeded in securing a spoonful of Cinnamon Bun, he grabbed her wrist and brought her spoon into his mouth.

“Mmmm,” he got the majority of the sweet treat into his mouth but Chloe had smeared a little bit of it on his chin. 

Without thinking, Chloe reached up and dragged the pad of her thumb along his chin and gathered up the ice cream before putting her thumb into her mouth and sucking on it. Lucifer’s breath hitched at her contact but he quickly repressed his feelings before she could sense them and muttered, “thief.”

“Not bad,” Chloe said, smacking her lips, “but mine’s better.”

Lucifer smiled and rolled his eyes and Chloe mirrored his smile, holding his eyes before turning back to the TV.

Chloe fell asleep before the episode ended, her head falling on Lucifer’s shoulder. She appreciated the body heat he was giving off and felt safe in his arms. 

Lucifer considered carrying her to bed but he decided that the couch was big enough for the two of them. 

Lucifer laid her down and pulled her close to his chest. He fell asleep shortly thereafter, his wings unfurling in his sleep to cover them both like blankets.

They didn’t catch the end of the baseball game, but if they had, they would’ve seen that the Angels beat the Dodgers.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright everyone, who's ready for some fake dating shenanigans? I think you guys are gonna enjoy this chapter. Let me know what you think in the comments or on twitter or tumblr @lucks_eterna ;)

Chloe woke up the next morning to a face full of feathers. The soft plumage tickled her nose and triggered a mighty sneeze that woke up Lucifer.

“Good morning, detective. I hope you’re not allergic to me, that would be a shame.”

“Mmm. Morning, Lucifer,” Chloe greeted. 

They untangled themselves from each other and Chloe immediately missed his warmth. Lucifer stood up and with a roll of his shoulders, his wings folded inwards and tucked away into wherever they go when they’re not visible.

The events of last night came rushing back to Chloe and her frown deepened. Lucifer had done a great job of keeping her mind off things with the ice cream and TV, and he definitely helped to ease the pain, but Dan’s rejection still stung. 

Chloe wished that she could just get over Dan and move on with her life, but a part of her couldn’t help but wish things had gone differently. She still had feelings for Dan, despite everything, and she still wanted to patch things up and go on another date with him.

Lucifer could feel her sadness and desperately wanted to make her feel better.

“Why don’t I make us some breakfast while you get ready for work?” he offered. Chloe nodded in agreement and made her way to her bedroom.

Lucifer got to work in the kitchen, mixing together pancake batter and depositing strips of bacon in the frying pan. While Lucifer hadn’t been on earth in eons, he had interacted with enough chefs in hell to know his way around a kitchen and he had picked up a few recipes over the years.

Chloe emerged from her bedroom right as Lucifer was pouring the batter into the pan. She was wearing jeans and a leather jacket and had put her hair up in a simple ponytail. She wasn’t in the mood to fuss too much about her hair this morning.

“You know, Daniel is a fool for how he treated you last night.”

“I know. I know I should just try to get over him but I can’t. I keep feeling like I did something wrong and need to fix it.”

“You did absolutely nothing wrong!” Lucifer insisted, “if anything, it’s my fault that you had to lie to him.”

“Hey, I don’t blame you one bit so you shouldn’t blame yourself either,” Chloe assuaged him.

“You’re right. We should blame that douche Daniel for not seeing what a catch you are.” 

Chloe smiled at his words but still couldn’t bring herself to be mad at Dan. 

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“I know I’m right! You are a strong, independent woman who don’t need no man. He’s waaaay worse off without you than you are without him. Trust me.”

“Thanks, Lucifer,” she gave him a tight-lipped smile and he smiled back as he flipped over the bacon.

“Dan doesn’t know what he’s missing. You’re too good for him, what does he even bring to the table anyways?” Lucifer continued his tirade and flipped over the pancakes that were beginning to bubble, “I mean, I’m the devil for crying out loud and even though I have no idea how human relationships work, _I_ would do a better job as your boyfriend.”

“That’s it!” Chloe exclaimed.

“What is?” Lucifer said, confused.

“You should be my boyfriend!” she declared. “Or at least pretend to be.”

“Uh what?” he let out a nervous chuckle.

“That’s the perfect way to get Dan back! Guys always want what they can’t have so we need to make him jealous; then he’ll see what he’s missing!”

“Um, are you sure that this is the best course of action?”

“It’s brilliant! Dan will see us in a relationship and then he’ll come crawling back, begging for me to take him back. It’s the perfect plan,” Chloe asserted. 

“There’s just one problem; I don’t lie.”  
“Don’t worry, I’ll do all the talking, you won’t have to lie.”

“Very well. If it’s what you desire, then I’ll go along with it.” Lucifer wasn’t happy with the idea but how could he say no when her heart was set on it?

“Perfect. Okay, first let’s come up with a different name for you. ‘Lucifer’ is too weird, how about ‘Luke’?” 

“No. Definitely not Luke. That self-righteous apostle is part of the reason my reputation is ruined.” Lucifer dished up their breakfast onto plates and sat down across from her at the table.

“Okay then, what should I call you?”

Lucifer was hesitant to offer up the next piece of information but he figured it would help to keep things as real as possible so he did it anyways, “Samael was my name before the fall. My siblings used to call me ‘Sam’ or ‘Sammy’.”

“Alright then, Sam. Are you ready to make Dan jealous?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose,” Lucifer grumbled.

They ate their breakfast together and he cleared their dishes while Chloe brushed her teeth and put her shoes on.

On the drive to the precinct, Chloe went through her plan.

“Okay, so first we have to get permission from the lieutenant if you’re going to be hanging around the precinct in a more official capacity. I don’t think he should have any problems with you riding along with me but if he does, then we’ll have to come up with a plan B.”

“Uh huh,” Lucifer agreed in a non-committal tone.

“Come on, Sam, don’t be like that,” Chloe scolded gently, “you’ll get to solve cases with me without all the sneaking around. It’s a win-win. Trust me.”

“I do.”

He did trust her. He trusted her enough to go along with her crazy plan; he just hoped it wouldn’t come back to bite him. 

As wary as he was about her plan, he did like the prospect of solving cases with her side by side. He hoped he could take a more active role in investigations instead of just looking at case files and the prospect of interrogating suspects excited him. 

“When it comes to making Dan jealous, just follow my lead. I’ll do all the talking. You just have to stand there and look hot, which you shouldn’t have any problem with,” Chloe muttered the last part under her breath but Lucifer still caught it.

Did she really think he was hot? He checked their emotional connection and while it wasn’t overpowering, there was a steady undercurrent of emotion coming from Chloe that proved she found him visually pleasing. 

Lucifer checked out his reflection in the car’s mirror and couldn’t wipe the big goofy grin off his face the whole car ride.

“You ready?” Chloe asked one last time, taking a deep breath.

“Let’s do this,” Lucifer said, slightly more hopeful about the whole thing. He accepted her hand and intertwined their fingers as they walked hand in hand into the precinct.

The first thing they did when they arrived in the bullpen was make a beeline for the lieutenant’s office. They marched through his door and Chloe addressed him directly.

“Lieutenant Jones, can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure, Decker, what’s up?” Lieutenant Trent Jones asked, taking off his reading glasses and putting down his pen.

“I wanted to introduce you to someone. This is Sam Morningstar,” Chloe said, dragging Lucifer out from behind her and into full view. Lucifer waved awkwardly and said a quick ‘hello’. “He’s part of the reason why I’ve been able to close so many cases lately. He’s been helping me out on cases lately and he’s also my boyfriend,” Chloe grabbed his hand and squeezed for emphasis. He squeezed back to show his support.

“Huh, I always thought you and Espinoza had a thing. Anyways, it’s nice to meet you, Sam. The department thanks you for your help closing those cases.”

“I was wondering if it would be okay for him to tag along on my cases going forward, as a civilian consultant.”

“Chloe,” Lieutenant Jones rarely used her first name so she was nervous that he was going to say ‘no’. “It’s unconventional to have a civilian consultant, but if he’s even a fraction of the reason why you’ve been so effective at solving cases lately then, frankly, I don’t care. As long as he signs the papers saying he won’t sue us if he gets shot, then the LAPD is happy to have him.”

“Thank you, sir!” Chloe said, letting out a breathy laugh of relief.

“Where do I sign?” Lucifer asked and they got to work filling out the necessary paperwork.

Lucifer left his office first but the lieutenant spoke up before Chloe could leave.

“I’m happy for you, Decker. It’s not often that someone finds a partner in work or in life that truly completes them but I can already tell that he’s it for you. I like him and I think he’s good for you. I’d keep him around if I were you.”

Lieutenant Jones might come off as gruff but he was a hopeless romantic deep down. Chloe smiled and nodded, not sure how else to respond. She didn’t know what she would tell him when she ‘broke up’ with Lucifer but hopefully he wouldn’t take it too poorly.

Chloe joined Lucifer at her desk and they got right to work on a new case. They bounced around ideas and motives but couldn’t really do anything while they were waiting for family members to be brought in for interviews.

When Dan walked in and sat down at his desk, it was time to set the plan in motion.

Chloe grabbed Lucifer’s hand and sidled up to his arm, close enough that she could feel his body heat. They strolled over to Dan’s desk hand in hand. Chloe gave Lucifer a small nod and they both knew that they were about to pass the point of no return.

“Oh, hi, Dan!” Chloe greeted in a cheery tone.

“Hi, Chloe. About last night…” Dan started to say before noticing Chloe’s arm candy, “wait, who’s this?” Dan couldn’t help but think that he looked familiar, like he’d seen him before somewhere, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Dan, I want you to meet Sam. My boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?!?! Wha… I didn’t know that you were dating anyone?” Dan said, wondering why she would ask him out on what he thought was a date last night if she was seeing someone. Maybe this was the reason she was acting so weird and keeping secrets, Dan thought.

“Yeah,” Chloe said dreamily, “it’s all so new. He comforted me after you left and then one thing led to another…” Chloe giggled.

“You mean after I left last night? Wow, that was fast, but hey, good for you,” Dan remarked.

“Yeah, I know it all happened so fast but when you know, you know.”

“Alright, cool. I’m happy for you. I better get back to work. It was nice meeting you, Sam,” Dan said cordially. 

“Likewise,” Lucifer said.

“Come on, Sam. I want to show you the evidence closet!”

Chloe dragged Lucifer into the small room and slammed the closet door behind them.

“Not that this isn’t a lovely closet, but what are we doing in here, detective?” Lucifer asked, confused.

“Trying to make Dan think we’re having sex,” Chloe answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She found his innocence absurdly adorable. He was the actual devil, not to mention sinfully attractive and hot as hell, yet he had been isolated from humans for so long that sex wasn’t even on his radar. “Here, let me mess up your hair.”

“Wha— I hardly think that’s necessary,” Lucifer said, bobbing and weaving to get away from Chloe’s hand to protect his hair.

“Come on, Sam,” she chided, “did you see the look on his face? The plan is working perfectly! He’s gonna be so jealous if he thinks we had sex in here.”

“Really? Cause he didn’t look too torn up to me to see that you had a boyfriend,” Chloe scowled at his words and he quickly added, “but I suppose I don’t know very much about human emotions.”

“Come here,” Chloe instructed and Lucifer squatted down low enough so that she could run her fingers through his hair.

Lucifer hated how much he enjoyed the feeling of her fingers massaging his scalp and had to remind himself that it wasn’t real.

“Perfect,” Chloe declared when she decided his hair was appropriately mussed, “now hold still.”

Chloe leaned into his personal space and peeled back the collar of his shirt. She pressed her lips to his neck, leaving behind a lipstick mark that was just visible above his collar but wasn’t too obvious.

Lucifer’s breath hitched and caught in his chest. He closed his eyes and, even though he knew it was fake, he couldn’t help himself from getting excited. Simultaneously, Lucifer felt his trousers tighten and his wings popped out with a fwoosh and knocked over shelves of evidence. 

The loud crash startled both of them and Lucifer was mortified when he realized what he had done.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he apologized profusely and worked on calming himself down enough to tuck his wings away into his back.

“No, no, it’s good, it’s all good,” Chloe reassured him, “it’ll sound like we’re having really wild sex in here, good idea!”

Lucifer grimaced and helped Chloe to put the evidence back where it belonged. When all the evidence was back in place, Lucifer turned to leave but Chloe stopped him.

“Wait,” she said and grabbed the front of his shirt. Chloe undid the buttons and for a second Lucifer thought she was going to kiss his chest even though no one would be able to see her lipstick there. She didn’t, instead, she buttoned up his shirt crooked so that the last button was inserted into the second to last hole and his shirt hung askew across his torso. “There.”

Chloe wrinkled her blouse and tousled her own hair before opening the door and exiting the closet.

Numerous pairs of eyes watched their departure from the evidence closet. 

Chloe didn’t care what they thought of her. They could think she’s a slut for all she cared, they already hated her anyways. The only pair of eyes she cared about was Dan’s. She bit her lip and looked in his direction and, sure enough, she met his gaze right before he looked down at his desk.

Satisfied with his reaction, Chloe sauntered back to her desk with Lucifer in tow and they got back to work on the case. Amy Cortez was found murdered in her home from blunt force trauma to the head. She was single and lived alone so they started by talking to her family.

When the family arrived at the precinct Chloe questioned them to find out if they had any idea who might be responsible or if Amy had any enemies.

The interviews didn’t lead anywhere so they focused on her financial records while they were waiting to hear back on forensics.

Lucifer and Chloe fell into an easy rhythm the rest of the morning. Lucifer was having so much fun bouncing ideas off Chloe and just enjoying being around her that he forgot he was supposed to be pretending to be her boyfriend.

“What do you want for lunch, babe?” Chloe asked Lucifer when Dan passed by her desk. She put her hand on his thigh and he tensed up under her touch. He still wasn’t used to all the casual touching after being touch starved for so long in hell.

“It doesn’t matter to me, darling,” he said, trying to pass off his flinch as a shrug.

“How about Chinese? I know a great dim sum place that delivers.”

“That sounds delightful. Why don’t you order for the both of us?” Lucifer said, placing his hand over hers in what he hoped was a casual gesture.

Chloe smiled and winked at him and then leaned in close and whispered in his ear so that only he could hear, “you’re doing great! Keep it up.”

Chloe ordered a smorgasbord of dim sum, along with noodles, rice, and fortune cookies for the two of them to enjoy.

It turned out Lucifer was incredibly skilled with chop sticks so when Chloe started struggling with hers, he picked up a dumpling with his and fed it to her. 

Lucifer laughed at Chloe’s too-full cheeks as she tried to chew the dumpling while suppressing her own laughter. 

It was so easy for Lucifer to forget that they were pretending in times like this.

He knew he shouldn’t be enjoying himself so much but he couldn’t help it. He would get so caught up in the moment that he would forget none of this was real. 

Lucifer knew it was wrong, but it felt so right to imagine that they were actually dating and that he had someone who loved him and saw him as an equal. But then Chloe would praise his acting skills or say something about Dan and his little dream world would come crashing down around him.

He knew that it was wrong to want these things, but he did. He knew that it was wrong for him to _want_ period. 

He was her guardian angel and she was just a job. Just work that had to be done. A human who needed his protection. He wasn’t even supposed to be seen by her but they had crossed that bridge long ago and Lucifer honestly didn’t want to go back to the way things were.

He _liked_ being her boyfriend, even if it was just pretend. He liked the way her smaller hand fit into his and he liked how gentle yet sure her touch was and how he was slowly getting used to being touched by her.

He just liked being around her. Even if it wasn’t real. Even if her heart would forever belong to Dan and she would never feel anything for him, Lucifer would be content to simply be a planet in her orbit if it allowed him to soak up even a glimmer of her sunshine.

After lunch, they caught a break in the Cortez case and found out that one of her male coworkers had made unwanted advances at Amy at work. They brought Al in for questioning and he confessed to murdering her because she refused to sleep with him.

With the case closed and the killer in custody, all that was left to do was paperwork.

“Thanks for everything today, babe,” Chloe said to Lucifer within earshot of Dan, “you were a big help on the case. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Oh sure you could have, you just wouldn’t have had as much fun doing it,” he countered with a wide grin on his face.

“Maybe,” Chloe conceded and started playing with the lapels of his jacket, “but I like having you around.”

Lucifer scanned her face for any signs of deception but didn’t find any. Everything else might be a sham but Lucifer was sure that that statement was the truth, and that was enough for him.

“Well, I like being around you,” he confessed, “and I think we make quite the team.”

“We do, don’t we?” Chloe whispered. It wasn’t loud enough for Dan to hear which made Lucifer happy, knowing that her words were intended for his ears only. 

Chloe stared at his lips and worked up the nerve for what she was about to do next.

“Bye, Sam. I’ll see you later,” she announced and then kissed him goodbye in Dan’s direct line of sight.

The kiss was nothing special. It was barely a peck, really. Over before it even really started. But for Lucifer, it was everything. 

It was the first time he’d kissed a human since Eve in Eden all those years ago, and for him, it was electric.

All his already heightened senses started working in overdrive to document every nanosecond of their brief kiss. He cataloged the precise amount of pressure she applied and noted the smoothness of her lips as they brushed over his own. 

His whole body was humming and his mind was devoid of any thoughts that didn’t involve the extraordinary woman in front of him. Even his heart was beating to the cadence of her name.

_Chloe, Chloe, Chloe._

He was so aroused after such a brief kiss that it wasn’t even funny. He feared that his wings might pop out again but in front of the entire precinct this time so he took his cue to leave, clenching his back muscles to hold everything in and breezing out the door.

Lucifer figured he probably looked constipated with how hard he was clenching but he couldn’t bring himself to care what other people thought about him in that moment. 

All that mattered was Chloe. 

She had kissed him. They had _kissed_. He didn’t know that lips touching together could be that exhilarating but he was learning a lot of new things thanks to Chloe Decker. 

When Lucifer made it outside, he quickly ducked into a side alley and checked for cameras or eye witnesses before relaxing his muscles and letting out his wings along with a huge sigh of relief.

Lucifer flew up to the roof and perched with a vantage point of the street so he could meet up with Chloe when she finished up for the day and was ready to go home.

_Chloe_ he thought with a dreamy exhale of appreciation. 

He soaked in all his feelings for her for a few moments and then nearly fell off the roof when he realized that she could probably feel everything he was feeling through their emotional connection. 

He quickly schooled his sentiments. Lucifer closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths to calm down. 

He tried to delve into their connection to see what Chloe was feeling but he couldn’t sift through it to distinguish where his emotions ended and hers began. It was all just one big, messy, soup of happiness, attraction, and mild arousal. 

As embarrassing as it was for Chloe to now know exactly what he was feeling and how much their kiss affected him, he was more concerned with his emotions overpowering hers and overshadowing how she really felt.

The last thing he wanted to do was take away Chloe’s free will. 

Lucifer kicked himself for giving in to his feelings and resolved to try and keep his emotions in check when it came to her so that he wouldn’t unintentionally influence her.

Inside the precinct, Chloe was trying to focus on her paperwork but wasn’t making much progress. Her mind kept going back to Lucifer’s soft, warm lips. 

Chloe had imagined what it would be like to kiss Dan many times since she’d met him so she had very high expectations for what constituted a ‘good’ kiss. She hadn’t really thought about what kissing Lucifer would be like but he just blew all her expectations out of the water.

Kissing Lucifer was like throwing gasoline on a fire that she didn’t even know was burning. It ignited every fiber of her being until she was consumed entirely with emotions that definitely weren’t part of her plan.

Sure, she thought Lucifer was attractive, she wasn’t blind, but she had feelings for Dan. She wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Lucifer like _that_. 

Lucifer was her guardian angel, he wasn’t a viable romantic option, was he? It was literally his job to keep her safe. There was no way he felt anything for her beyond a basic desire to protect. He was just a good actor, going along with a plan that was Chloe’s idea.

She shook her head and reminded herself how awesome Dan was and that he was the whole reason for her elaborate fake dating plan.

Chloe turned in her half-assed paperwork at the end of the day and gathered her things before walking to the parking garage.

She had only just entered the parking structure when she heard a familiar voice creeping up behind her.

“Well if it isn’t the station’s resident slut,” Malcolm jibed, a disturbing mirthful grin on his face. “A little birdie told me that just one day after going on a date with my boy Dan, you’re having sex with your new boyfriend in the evidence closet.”

“Leave me alone, Malcom,” Chloe demanded, trying to sound calm and commanding and keep the fear out of her voice.

“Now, I always knew you were a bitch, but I didn’t know you were easy too.”

Chloe didn’t respond to that and instead quickened her pace, desperate to get to her car. 

Malcolm caught up to her though and shoved her from behind, causing her to stumble into a concrete pillar.

Chloe winced when her shoulder collided with the cold cement column and instinctively reached for her gun, only to remember that she had left it in her desk. 

Malcolm pushed her further into the unforgiving concrete column and leaned into her personal space. His stale breath puffed against her cheek, infiltrating her nostrils and making her gag. 

“If you’re just handing out access to your pussy like tic tacs, then you won’t mind if I have a go, right?” Malcolm let out a manic laugh and moved his face even closer to hers.

Chloe tried to knee him in the balls but he saw it coming and grabbed her thigh. She closed her eyes and turned her head as far away from Malcolm as she could get, fearing what he might do next.

Chloe heard a familiar whoosh of air and opened one eye just in time to see Malcom get ripped away from her. 

Lucifer had arrived just in the nick of time. He grabbed Malcom by the collar of his shirt and used his super strength to throw him across the dirty, oil stained floor of the parking garage. Malcolm slid violently on the cement, probably hard enough to get a nasty road rash.

_Good._ Chloe thought, feeling no sympathy for her would-be attacker. 

“If you ever so much as talk to her again without her consent, you won’t live to regret it!” Lucifer threatened. His voice was a few octaves lower and was so menacing that Chloe could feel his raw, unadulterated anger even with his back to her. 

This was the voice of the King of Hell, Chloe realized. 

She hadn’t really seen it before, but now she could see clearly that her guardian angel used to be the devil and could inspire fear when he wanted to. Chloe could’ve been scared by this revelation but she knew him too well by now. She knew that Lucifer would never do anything to hurt her, so instead, she found his righteous anger at Malcolm incredibly satisfying and kinda hot. 

“Your boyfriend won’t always be here to protect you, Chloe!” Malcom shouted, before scrambling to his car on the other side of the garage.

“That’s what you think,” Chloe said, even though Malcolm was out of earshot. She smirked at her little inside joke and felt a sense of warmth envelop her at the thought of Lucifer being there to protect her for the rest of her life. 

He would be there for her, no matter what. No matter how much danger she was in, he would find her and he would save her, every time. That fact gave Chloe a tremendous peace of mind and made her feel more secure than her gun or Taser ever did.

“Are you alright, detective? I’m so sorry I wasn’t here sooner, the compass in my nose is good for direction but not elevation. I knew you were in danger but I couldn’t get to you,” he said frantically, “I knew you were near, I just… I kept circling but I just couldn’t find you.”

“Hey, it’s okay, I’m fine. You got to me just in time.”

“But if I didn’t…”

“You wouldn’t let anything happen to me. Come here,” Chloe said and opened her arms, and wrapped them around his torso before he could continue to beat himself up.

Chloe closed her eyes and tucked her head under his chin, nuzzling her face into his warm neck. Lucifer rubbed his hands up and down her back and mixed in some intermittent patting. They both just breathed in each other’s scents and savored the moment. Chloe was okay. Lucifer had found her in time. Everything had turned out alright. 

“Let’s get out of this stupid garage,” Chloe finally said, and they begrudgingly pulled apart. 

They drove home and Lucifer cooked them some comfort food. He prepared a warm, home-cooked meal of meatloaf and mashed potatoes with green beans and biscuits. 

After dinner, Chloe cracked open a few beers and they sat together on the couch, watching TV and sipping away at their much-needed alcohol.

It was starting to get late but Chloe didn’t want to leave the couch. She was warm and comfortable sitting next to Lucifer and she was scared that if she went to bed alone, she would have nightmares about Malcolm.

“Time for bed?” Lucifer questioned. He noticed that she was fidgeting with indecision.

Chloe nodded and got up from the couch, already missing his warmth. She began to get ready for bed, taking off her makeup, brushing her teeth and getting into pajamas, but she couldn’t bring herself to actually go to bed.

“So I’ve been thinking,” Chloe started, awkwardly leaning against her bedroom’s doorframe, “my couch really isn’t that comfortable and my bed is plenty big.” Lucifer didn’t piece together what she was getting at so she continued, trying to sound as casual about it as possible. “Maybe we could share it? The bed. I mean, it would let you keep a closer eye on me.”

“Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to encroach on your privacy,” Lucifer said, hesitantly.

“Completely sure. I just don’t want you to be uncomfortable on the couch, it’s really no big deal.”

“The couch really isn’t that bad,” Lucifer said, patting the cushions, “loads more comfortable than hell. I really don’t mind sleeping out here, I’m just thankful to not have to sleep on the roof anymore. Besides, I can keep an eye on the door just fine from here.”

“But what if someone came through my bedroom window?”

“I would hear it or sense you were in danger and stop them before anything happened,” he asserted. Lucifer didn’t like to think about someone trying to hurt Chloe in her sleep but he was confident he could adequately protect her.

Chloe sighed and realized that she would have to be more straightforward about what she wanted so she sucked up her pride and leveled with him.

“Honestly,” she opened up, “after what Malcolm tried to pull today, I think I would feel a lot safer with you in my bed.”

Lucifer gulped and his heart stuttered when he realized the gravity of what she was saying. She wanted him in her bed. All night. She trusted him enough to sleep with him in the same bed, albeit platonically. 

Even though they had slept together on the couch just last night, it was so spur of the moment he didn’t really have time to think about what it meant. Sleeping in her bed felt totally different and much more intimate.

“Very well, if that’s what you desire.”

“It is,” Chloe whispered.

Lucifer got up from the couch and followed her into the bedroom. 

He made a quick detour to her bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth using the toothbrush she had bought for him. He changed into an oversized sweatshirt and a pair of unisex sweatpants that Chloe had loaned him. They were far too large for her but they left Lucifer’s ankles and lower calves exposed.

When he finished up in the bathroom, Chloe was already in bed, beckoning him over.

He let out a shaky breath and schooled his emotions as best he could before peeling away the covers and sliding into Chloe’s bed.

He had to admit, it was a lot more comfortable than the couch, but he couldn’t really focus on that when Chloe was lying less than two feet away.

Lucifer tried to give Chloe as much room as possible so he hugged the edge of the bed. A few more inches and he would’ve fallen off. Chloe wasn’t having it though and scooted closer to him, encouraging him to do the same.

Chloe rolled over on her side, draping her arm over his chest and resting her cheek against his shoulder. 

Lucifer’s stomach flip flopped and he just knew that she could feel his heart hammering underneath her hand on his chest.

Chloe did notice his reaction but she didn’t mind. Pressed up against him, she felt safe. Nothing bad could happen with him so close.

It took both of them ages to calm down enough to fall asleep but when they did, it was a restful, rejuvenating sleep filled with pleasant dreams.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright guys, remember that angst I mentioned in the summary? Well here it is.

Before Chloe even opened her eyes the next morning, she knew she was surrounded by light. 

At first, she thought that it was coming through her bedroom window but it was far too bright for the early morning. Unless she overslept. 

Chloe’s eyes snapped open and she saw bright white surrounding her on all sides. It took her a second to shake off her disorientation and realize where she was. 

She was in her own bed, surrounded by an igloo of Lucifer’s wings.

At some point during the night, he had protectively arched his right wing over her.

Chloe snuck a peek at her alarm clock through a small gap above the arch of his wing and saw that she still had plenty of time before she had to wake up so she snuggled deeper into the angel behind her.

Lucifer let out a small moan in his sleep that turned into a sigh. His wing tugged Chloe closer to him so that her back was pressed firmly up against his chest and his arm draped over her side so that his hand was resting on her stomach.

Chloe was wide awake now.

She felt something hard press up against her butt and realized what was happening when Lucifer let out another breathy moan. 

_Oh._

She felt heat pool in her lower belly but she couldn’t pinpoint whether her arousal was her own or if she was picking up on Lucifer’s or maybe a combination of the two. 

She didn’t want to wake him up but she didn’t know how much longer she could let this go on.

“Lucifer,” she whispered and tapped his hand that was resting on her stomach but apparently, that was the wrong move.

“Chloe,” he mumbled and tightened his grip on her.

“Okay, time to wake up!” Chloe said a little louder and Lucifer jolted awake.

“Whazza… Detective?” Lucifer said in a confused voice. 

He took a moment to assess the situation and then noticed his own condition before turning beet red.

Chloe sensed his embarrassment and decided to cut him some slack.

“I’m gonna go make some breakfast. Why don’t you hop in the shower?” she suggested.

Lucifer gave Chloe a tight-lipped smile and a curt nod and then proceeded to swiftly make his way to the bathroom.

After a somewhat tense breakfast, Lucifer and Chloe found their rhythm again when they started working their next case.

They continued with the plan to make Dan jealous by holding hands, smiling, and being incredibly flirty whenever he was watching but Dan didn’t seem to be too phased. 

They solved their case and then went home together, falling into a familiar routine of making dinner and watching TV together before going to bed.

Lucifer was still hesitant to join Chloe in her bed after the morning’s events but Chloe insisted that she wanted him there so he wasn’t going to argue with her.

The next morning, they woke up in a more platonic position but the rest of their day was similar to the one before.

Weeks passed and they continued with their fake relationship, but the longer it went on, the less fake it became.

The more time Chloe and Lucifer spent together, the less it became about making Dan jealous. 

She genuinely liked having Lucifer around and had come to rely on him more and more. 

She had a tough job but having him around actually made it fun. 

Not only was Lucifer extremely helpful when it came to solving cases, once they got more comfortable around each other, his sense of humor began to come out. 

Chloe liked that he could find a way to inject humor into even the most gruesome of cases and he made coming into work a lot more enjoyable. She finally had a friend and a partner at work that she could trust and depend on and she was smiling a lot more these days. 

They had formed little routines and traditions together over the past few weeks that they had both come to look forward to.

Beyond solving cases together, they would take turns cooking dinner and deciding what to watch on TV. They even made Thursday night board game night and it turned out that Lucifer was quite good at Monopoly. 

Lucifer also made sure that Chloe got out of the house more and took her to clubs and bars and museums on the weekend. 

One day, they got assigned to a particularly difficult case. 

While most cases were pretty straightforward and they could solve them in a day or two, this one had many twists and turns and had all the makings of a murder mystery novel.

The victim had an illegitimate child that he didn’t know about that found out about him through an ancestry DNA kit and decided to commit patricide to try and get some of the inheritance. 

The illegitimate child also happened to be part of an elaborate drug ring and he was willing to turn over all the names in local drug kingpin Tommy Campalonga’s operation in exchange for a reduced sentence. 

It was a wild case and because it was so difficult, it was more satisfying when they solved it.

“Good job on this one, you two. You made the department, and more importantly, me, look good. Congrats,” Lieutenant Jones praised, half-jokingly.

“Thanks, Lieutenant,” Chloe said and pulled Lucifer over to her desk so she could talk to him more privately.

“You know, I couldn’t have solved this case without you,” Chloe commended Lucifer and started playing with his hand, rubbing patterns over his knuckles.

“Yes you could have,” he objected gently, “because you are the smartest, most determined person I know. You are bloody brilliant. You can do anything you set your mind to.”

“Maybe so,” Chloe flicked her eyes up so that she was meeting his, “but I don’t want to do anything without you. You are the best partner I have ever had. I hope you can count on me as much as I count on you.”

“Chloe,” Lucifer breathed her name like a prayer and that was all it took for Chloe to close her eyes and lean in.

Tentatively at first, Chloe pressed her lips against his. He responded with a soft gasp and bent over to give her better access.

Emboldened by his response, Chloe sucked his bottom lip into her mouth and worried it between her teeth. 

Lucifer’s kissing skills were a little out of practice since he’d been in hell for so long, but he somehow knew that sweeping his tongue over her top lip was the right move so he let his intuition guide him.

Lucifer dug his fingers through her hair bun and Chloe played with the hair at the base of his neck.

Lucifer began to pull away but Chloe grabbed on to the lapels of his jacket to held him closer. She wasn’t done with him yet so he eagerly redoubled his efforts and dove back in. 

Their hearts were both beating erratically in sync as they swelled with joy. 

Lucifer tilted his jaw to the other side to see what a new angle would feel like and found out it was just as enjoyable as the original. 

Gaining more confidence, Lucifer pressed one, long, searing kiss over Chloe’s mouth before rapidly peppering her lips with a series of smaller kisses. 

Lucifer finally pulled away when he thought Chloe was going to pass out from lack of oxygen. 

Both their lips were red and swollen and they were utterly out of breath.

Lucifer felt on top of the world but, unfortunately, when you’re on top, the only place to go is down.

“Wow,” Chloe said, still catching her breath. The kiss was unlike anything she had ever experienced before in her life. To put it simply, kissing the devil was a religious experience for Chloe. The depth of her emotions scared her though, so without thinking, she tried to play it cool. “That will really make Dan jealous.”

Dan wasn’t even working. He had the day off. It was a stupid thing for Chloe to say and she regretted it the moment it came out of her mouth.

The truth was, she was terrified, because if this whole thing wasn’t about making Dan jealous, then what was it all for? 

Their kiss made it clear that she was catching some serious feelings for Lucifer and that was, decidedly, not part of the plan. She needed to remind Lucifer, but more so herself, that the only reason they were pretending to date was so that she could end up with Dan. 

The problem was, her thoughts were focused less and less on Dan and more on her handsome guardian angel who she could spend every second of the day with and still want more.

It scared Chloe how she could be around Lucifer for so long without getting tired of him. 

With most of the people in her life, Chloe got sick of them after a while and needed some space, but with Lucifer, well, it was like he was her other half. 

It hurt so much when they were apart that she felt like she couldn’t breathe.

Chloe knew that it was cliché and she sounded all sappy, but it was the truth, and that level of dependency on another person scared her. 

She should have just told him how she felt, but instead, she had to go and ruin the afterglow of their amazing kiss by bringing up Dan.

“You know, I might be your guardian angel, but that doesn’t mean you can treat me like bloody rubbish. I might not be human but I still have emotions, desires, yearnings, and… I thought… so none of it was real?”

Chloe could almost physically feel his heart shattering into a million pieces though their emotional connection. 

It was clear that he felt something more for her too and when she essentially disabused him of that notion by bringing up Dan right after they kissed, he was heartbroken beyond belief. 

Chloe should have assured him that she didn’t mean it and told him exactly how she felt, but he stormed off before she could say anything.

“I need some air!”

“Lucifer, wait!” Chloe called after him and tried to follow but he was too fast. She nearly caught up to him when he walked outside the precinct but the next second his wings were out and with a mighty flap and a whoosh of air, he was gone.

Lucifer soared over Los Angeles and cried, but this time they weren’t tears of joy. 

Flying was one of his favorite activities but even the feel of the wind in his wings did nothing to mend his broken heart. The high winds of the upper atmosphere stung Lucifer’s cheeks and dried his tears before they could spill from his eyes.

Even throughout his eons in hell, Lucifer had never known a sorrow like this. His heartache was so powerful that it completely overwhelmed Chloe’s own emotions and soon she was crying too. 

Luckily, it was almost the end of the day and since they had closed a case, Chloe was allowed to go home early. She didn’t know how she could’ve kept it together if she had to stay at the precinct any longer.

Tears obscured Chloe’s vision as she collected her things and headed to the parking garage. She didn’t want anyone to see her wiping them away so they remained until she had some privacy. 

Chloe hadn’t cried like this since her father died and even then, the grief was more cathartic than anything. These tears, however, only served as a reminder of her folly and kept building until a new, more violent wave of tears overtook her. 

Chloe sifted through her purse for tissues once she was in the privacy of the parking garage but didn’t get to them in time.

While Chloe was fumbling with her purse, her attacker made his move.

She heard the ominous crackle of a Taser before she felt the sting of 50,000 volts of electricity coursing through her body. 

All the muscles in her body contracted painfully and she would’ve fallen to the ground if her attacker hadn’t caught her. 

Chloe heard the trunk of a car unlatch and she felt herself being lifted and deposited into the trunk, powerless to stop it. 

Once she was in the trunk, she fought off the flutter of her eyelids to get a look at her attacker. She seethed with anger when she recognized his ugly face and stupid mustache.

_Malcolm_

He grinned at her like the sadistic bastard he was before digging the Taser into her skin just below her ribs and yanking the trigger. 

Chloe felt small droplets of spittle escape her mouth as she convulsed once more and finally passed out.

When she finally woke up she didn’t know if she had been out for minutes or hours. Her hands and feet were bound and she was still in the trunk of Malcolm’s car but they weren’t moving.

She heard the driver’s door open and slam, which caused Chloe to tense up and go on high alert.

The trunk opened and Chloe squinted into the bright fluorescent lights above as they assaulted her dark-adjusted pupils. 

“Wakey wakey, Decker. Time to get up!” Malcolm grabbed her bound wrists and yanked her harshly out of the trunk.

Chloe quickly took in her surroundings and saw that they were in an abandoned aircraft hangar. Her heart pounded as she wondered what Malcolm planned on doing with her and why Lucifer hadn’t found her yet.

“What are we doing here, Malcolm?” Chloe asked, sticking out her chin to try and appear confident.

“We’re just here to have a little chat.”

“And you needed to kidnap me for this little chat why, exactly?”

“Because I wanted us to talk without your annoying, overbearing boyfriend around. I’ve been trying to get you alone for weeks but he’s always right there, hovering nearby. Jeez, I mean, it’s like you two are attached at the hip or something. Now that we’re alone though, I’m hoping you’ll actually listen to my offer and accept it.”

“What’s your offer?”

“It’s simple, really. You agree to stop investigating the Campalonga drug ring and I won’t put a bullet in your head.”

“Wait, the Campalonga drug ring? That’s the operation that the murderer we just caught was a part of. He was gonna flip and give us all the names. Why would you care?” Chloe wondered before putting the pieces together. “Unless… you’re a part of it, aren’t you?”

“Very good, Decker. So she does have a brain in that pretty little head. You see, Tommy provides me with some supplemental income in exchange for first pick of our drugs in evidence lockup. If he goes down, then I’m gonna lose a lot of money and probably my job, and I kinda like things the way they are now.”

“You’re not gonna get away with it. Even if you kill me, someone else at the precinct is bound to figure out your game. There’s no way this ends well for you,” Chloe threatened.

Malcolm let out a deranged laugh that sent a chill up Chloe’s spine.

“Oh, Chloe,” he clicked his tongue, “you really think you’re the first one to figure it out? Half the LAPD is in on it. I give our fellow officers a cut in exchange for their silence. Even your boy Dan is on the take.”

“No!” Chloe shook her head, refusing to believe it.

“Yes,” Malcolm countered, “at one time, I thought about offering you the same deal but now I know that you have too much damn honor to accept it. The only way I’m gonna keep you out of my business is with violence.”

Malcolm cocked his gun and leveled it at Chloe. She needed to keep stalling. Keep him talking until Lucifer arrived. At least she hoped he was on his way. What if he had somehow turned off their connection and didn’t know she was in danger? Was that even possible? She hoped not.

“It doesn’t matter if most of the LAPD is corrupt, they’ll still notice I’m gone and fire you when they find out you murdered me.”

“Would they? You’re not exactly the most popular person in the precinct, Chlo. Maybe your murder would just go unsolved,” he said with a casual shrug.

“Sam would never let that happen!” she shouted, trying to delay the inevitable, “if you hurt me, he will hunt you down to the ends of the earth. I know him, trust me when I say he will not rest until you’re in the ground.”

Chloe sent a silent prayer to Lucifer to come and find her before it came to that but she had no way of knowing if he heard her or not.

“Hmm I guess that’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Malcolm pointed the gun at her center mass and all her confidence and bravado melted away.

High over the city of angels, Lucifer had been so consumed by his dejection that he hadn’t been paying any attention to Chloe’s emotions until he heard her prayer to him and felt a sense of sheer terror wash over him.

Setting aside his sadness for a moment, he finally registered that Chloe was in danger. He turned on a dime midflight and followed the Chloe compass in his nose to fly to her as fast as possible.

“Wait, wait, wait! I won’t say anything! I’ll look the other way too, I won’t get in your way,” Chloe pleaded with Malcolm.

“I wish I could believe you but your track record speaks for itself, sorry. If it makes you feel any better, finding a good place to dump your body is gonna be a pain in my ass.”

“Please don’t do this, Malcolm!” she tried one last time to appeal to his better nature, “you don’t have to worry about me, I swear, I’m not gonna be a problem!”

Just then, Lucifer burst through the glass windows of the hangar. 

Chloe’s heart soared when her savior finally arrived. Malcolm was distracted by the commotion and looked to find the source of it, turning his gun away from Chloe. 

“Unfortunately, I can’t promise the same thing. And I’m gonna be an even bigger problem for you if you don’t unhand her this moment!” Lucifer menaced in his devil voice as he stuck the landing and struck a superhero pose. 

He left his wings out and they puffed up to make him look even bigger and more threatening. 

“Wha… you… you’re…” Malcolm sputtered, “your boyfriend is an angel?”

“Her guardian angel, to be exact,” Lucifer quipped, “oh yeah, and I’m also the devil, so I’ll make sure you get a warm welcome in hell, emphasis on the ‘warm’.”

Lucifer lunged forward and used his impressive wingspan to knock the gun from Malcolm’s hand with one precise strike.

Malcolm recovered quickly though, to his credit, and decided to come at Lucifer with his fists.

Lucifer easily dodged or blocked Malcolm’s punches, expending very little effort. It was like watching a cat play with a mouse; Malcolm didn’t stand a chance.

Lucifer was getting bored so he decided to let Malcolm’s fist connect with his face, thinking that it would be like punching a brick wall for Malcolm, as it was for Paolucci. 

Malcolm gave Lucifer a nasty right hook and, to Lucifer’s surprise, it knocked him over. 

He stumbled back a few steps from the force of the blow and immediately felt the telltale sting that meant he would have a black eye tomorrow. Lucifer had gotten into many a squabble with his brothers in heaven back in the day and knew what a black eye felt like, since one angel can hurt another, but human punches shouldn’t hurt him.

He knew Malcolm wasn’t one of his demons, even though he was devious enough to be one, and he definitely wasn’t an angel so how could it be that his punch hurt him? If Malcolm really was just an ordinary human, did that mean that Lucifer was vulnerable now? How long had this been going on and why?

Lucifer didn’t have time to ponder those questions though as Malcolm was bearing down on him in an instant.

He began wailing on the angel with his fists but Lucifer was quick to respond by sweeping Malcolm’s legs out from under him with a swipe of his wings.

Malcolm was a scrappy bastard though, Lucifer had to give him that, and he got right back up, brushing the dust off his clothes from the floor of the hangar.

Malcolm was beginning to tire though and he knew he couldn’t keep this up forever, especially against a supernatural being, so he decided to hit him where it really hurts.

Malcolm rushed towards Chloe who was working on freeing herself from her bindings. He grabbed her bound wrists, twisting them painfully before pulling out his pocket knife and holding it to her throat.

“Let her go, Malcolm!” Lucifer commanded.

“If I let her go… you let me live?” Malcolm bargained, breathing his foul breath into Chloe’s face.

“How about you let her go in the next three seconds or else I’ll tear your arms and legs off and beat you with them?” Lucifer growled and began to stalk towards them.

“Hey, hey, back off you freak or I’ll slit her throat, don’t think I won’t do it!” Malcolm pressed the small blade into Chloe’s neck just hard enough to draw blood, causing Chloe to wince.

Lucifer raised his hands in surrender and stopped his advance.

“Easy there, Malcy. There’s no need for violence. Let’s just put down the knife, nice and easy now,” Lucifer crooned softly, changing tactics.

Malcolm relaxed his grip just a shade but that was enough for Chloe to take advantage. In one fluid movement, she yanked her arms free of his grasp and pulled the hand with the knife away from her throat and then head-butted Malcolm. She heard a sickening crack and knew that she had broken his nose.

“You bitch!” he shouted and clutched his nose, but it sounded like he was calling her a bench due to the blood gushing from his snout.

Chloe picked up the knife that he had dropped and cut through her bindings, massaging her wrists once she was free.

Now, without any weapon or leverage, Malcolm knew he didn’t stand a chance so he made a break for it.

Lucifer lunged to follow him but Chloe shook her head and called him off.

“Leave him. He’s not worth it.”

Lucifer nodded and instead rushed towards Chloe.

“Are you okay?” he asked in a tender voice. 

Chloe marveled at his duality of how he could be so harsh and menacing with his growly devil voice one minute and then sweet and soft with her the next.

“I’m alright,” she replied as his fingers probed her neck to examine her knife wound. It wasn’t very deep, he doubted that it would even leave a scar, but he hated to see her hurt in any capacity. “I was so scared,” she admitted as she was on the verge of tears.

“I know. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there but you’re gonna be alright,” Lucifer comforted her with a hug, “it’s okay. It’s all over now.”

Except it wasn’t all over.

As soon as they pulled away from the hug Lucifer’s danger alarm went off. The next second, a shot rang out, echoing loudly in the cavernous hangar.

Lucifer felt a sting in his abdomen and suddenly he couldn’t breathe. 

He looked down at his chest, expecting to see a plume of red now that he was vulnerable, but there was nothing there. His clothes didn’t even have a bullet hole in them.

When Lucifer turned to Chloe though, he suddenly realized the source of his pain.

“Chloe!” he shouted, and rushed to catch her just as she was about to fall to the ground.

A waterfall of blood was cascading out of the bullet wound in her chest.

Malcolm had doubled back and retrieved his gun from where Lucifer had knocked it to the ground earlier.

“I was gonna shoot her earlier and now that I got a second chance, I sure as hell wasn’t gonna waste it,” Malcolm said and added a demented laugh for good measure.

“No!” Lucifer shouted.

Chloe was bleeding out on the ground. She had already lost a lot of blood. She was dying. 

Unless Lucifer could save her, Chloe Decker was going to die well before her 89th birthday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Show of hands, who thought for a second that Lucifer was the one who got shot? Please feel free to tell me how much you hate me for ending it like this in the comments XD


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright guys, this is the last chapter before the epilogue. Thanks for joining me on this journey as our time together draws to an end ;)

Chloe was bleeding out on the ground and Malcolm was still laughing.

Lucifer should’ve tended to Chloe immediately. He later wished he would’ve. But he was still the devil so his desire for punishment won out.

A low growl started in the back of his throat and erupted out of him. If he still had his devil face, it would definitely be out as he hunted down Malcolm.

Even without his devil face, Lucifer was plenty intimidating. 

In just a few strides of Lucifer’s long legs, he closed in on his target.

Malcolm stared at Lucifer like a deer in headlights, frozen with fear. 

He still had five bullets left in his gun but he was caught off guard by the avenging angel so he didn’t even fire off one before Lucifer grabbed the muzzle of his gun and crushed it in his grip.

Lucifer grinned and savored the look of terror on Malcolm’s face when he realized he was utterly screwed.

Lucifer grabbed Malcolm by the neck with one hand, lifting him off the ground with his super strength.

This maggot didn’t even deserve to breath the same air as Chloe and now Lucifer was gonna make him pay.

Channeling all his rage into violence, Lucifer squeezed Malcolm’s windpipe and with a shove he sent the man flying across the hangar like a rag doll. 

Lucifer used a little too much force though because Malcolm’s head slammed into the wing of an airplane fifty yards away and cracked open, spewing blood and brains everywhere.

“Oh no.”

Even though Malcolm was a bastard and deserved to die for what he did to Chloe, Lucifer still felt bad.

‘No Killing Humans’ was one of the cardinal rules of being an angel and he had never broken that rule before; he had only ever punished those already dead.

He didn’t have time to dwell on that though because Chloe needed him.

“Lucifer!” she rasped and let out a wet cough. He rushed over and knelt down next to her.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay,” Lucifer comforted her and held her hand but he could sense just how dire the situation was through their emotional connection. “You can’t die. Please, no! You can’t die,” he repeated frantically, practically begging her, “please don’t go, I… I love you!”

Lucifer hoped that his words would give her enough will to live but, just in case, he didn’t want her to die without telling her. Even if she didn’t feel the same, Lucifer had to let her know how he felt.

“Lucifer,” Chloe’s voice was weak and shaky but she was determined to get a proper goodbye, “I love you too! I wanted to make Dan jealous at first but somewhere along the way, I fell for you. Our kiss earlier was real. What I feel for you is real, I’m sorry for making you feel otherwise. I’ve had the time of my life with you these past few months and I wouldn’t change a thing. I just…” she rasped, “I just wish that I had told you sooner. I love you, Lucifer Morningstar. Thank you for everything. Goodbye.”

Chloe closed her eyes and Lucifer cupped her face, caressing her cheek gently.

“No, no, no. I was supposed to protect you, this can’t be happening!” Lucifer looked at her effusive bullet wound and then felt like an idiot for not acting sooner. “I can save you!” he declared.

Lucifer pulled a small white feather from his wing and placed it on Chloe’s wound. He waited a moment but nothing happened.

The feather didn’t glow with the light of Heaven and heal her; it just turned from pure white to crimson red as it absorbed her blood.

“No. This is supposed to work. Why isn’t it working?” 

As wretched as it was to see his feather fail, that was nothing compared to the hollow feeling that began to consume him.

It was like someone had snuffed out an eternal flame that had been burning inside of Lucifer and he didn’t notice it until it was gone. It felt like his heart had been ripped out of his chest and yet, at the same time, he felt nothing at all.

He tried to probe his emotional connection with Chloe but there was nothing but static on her end and, in that moment, a part of Lucifer recognized that she was dead.

The rest of Lucifer, however, was in denial so like a mad man, he began ripping feathers out of his wings by the handful and shoving them against her wound.

“No. No. No. No. NOOOOO!!! CHLOE!!!” he bellowed and continued to tear his feathers out, not caring that he was ripping out chunks of skin along with them.

Lucifer covered Chloe in a shroud of white fluff but it did nothing to bring her back.

Chloe Decker had died.

Lucifer Morningstar had failed in his duties as her guardian angel.

Lucifer fell back onto his haunches on the cold cement of the hangar, the love of his life dead on the floor next to him. 

Lucifer wept. 

There was nothing else he could do.

He wept and beat himself up, reliving the past few minutes over and over again.

If only he had made sure Malcolm didn’t get away the first time. If only he had seen the gun sooner and jumped in front of Chloe. If only he had gone to help her first instead of going after Malcolm.

_If only. If only. If only._

He didn’t know how long he sat there wallowing in his misery but eventually he decided that if he was going to subjugate himself to his own personal hell loop, he might as well go back to hell.

There was nothing left for him on earth now.

His life was meaningless without Chloe.

He had failed, which meant that he didn’t earn his Father’s forgiveness and was going to be banished to hell and stripped of his wings again.

He might as well get a head start since he was headed there anyways.

Lucifer kissed Chloe’s forehead and said one last teary ‘goodbye’ before taking flight.

He flew outside through the window and made his way west towards the ocean, but this time, he took no solace in flying.

Lucifer gained altitude and then folded his wings in tight to his body, stooping towards the glittering blue below.

Lucifer flapped his wings and crossed planes of existence right when he was about to crash into the surface of the water.

When he saw flakes of ash raining down and stone pillars as far as the eye could see, Lucifer knew he was right where he belonged.

Sitting on his throne, Lucifer looked out over his expansive kingdom with apathy. He had never wanted to be the ruler of such a depraved domain but, once upon a time, he had taken a certain pride in a job well done.

Now he felt nothing but disdain for his job.

Lucifer felt the vibrations of someone knocking on the pillar that his throne was mounted on; the signal that a demon was requesting his presence.

Lucifer let out an irritated sigh. He considered ignoring the request but ultimately obliged. Flaring his wings out like a parachute, Lucifer slid out of the chair and glided to the ground.

“Welcome back, boss! We missed ya!” Dromos greeted.

Lucifer rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything. Dromos was one of his least favorite demons. He was annoying, clingy, and couldn’t take a hint. He constantly wanted Lucifer’s approval and considered himself an overachiever, willing to go above and beyond when it came to torture, but he came off as a bit of a try-hard. 

“Yes, Dromos. What is it?” Lucifer asked, wishing he would just get on with it.

“We’ve got a fresh batch of souls waiting for ya. I thought it might cheer ya up to decide how we should punish them: generic hell loop or custom job?”

Lucifer nearly told Dromos to do whatever, he didn’t care, but something made him change his mind.

“I suppose I could take a look.”

Dromos led Lucifer to the herd of new souls waiting to be judged. 

The demons probably could’ve figured out who deserved what without Lucifer’s input but it gave him something to do.

“Loop, loop, custom, loop, loop, loop, custom, loop,” Lucifer doled out punishments without any emotions, quickly glancing at their files to see who had enough remorse to torture themselves and who needed a little something extra.

When he was getting towards the end of the group, Lucifer came across a familiar face.

Malcolm Graham looked terrified out of his mind when he saw Lucifer and realized where he was.

Lucifer looked through Malcolm’s file at the laundry list of bad deeds he had committed on earth that further confirmed that he belonged in hell.

“Ah yes, this one gets extra special treatment,” Lucifer said. He knew that Malcolm didn’t feel enough guilt to properly torture himself so after a few more minutes perusing his file, he decided on an apt punishment. “Let’s put him in solitary. No food, no water, no light, no sleep, no human or demon interaction. Malcolm Graham, I hereby sentence you to an eternity of extreme solitary confinement. Just you, your thoughts, and four walls until the end of time.”

Malcolm looked horrified at his punishment and it was clear that he would rather have a demon physically torture him every day just so he could have someone to talk to. Lucifer hit the nail on the head with his punishment; denying Malcolm all the pleasures that life offered truly was his own personal hell.

The demons dragged Malcolm away, ignoring his screams of protest. 

Lucifer wished he could enjoy punishing Malcolm more but he took no pleasure in the man’s suffering. He reminded Lucifer too much of Chloe and how he failed her. Perhaps in a few centuries Lucifer would visit Malcolm in his cell and would be able to enjoy his suffering, but for now, it just hurt.

Lucifer continued to make his way through the crowd of souls, doling out punishments. 

He felt something guiding him to the back of the crowd like a string being pulled taut. He couldn’t quite explain it, but he knew he needed to walk in that direction.

He saw her before she saw him. Her eyes were downcast and she was looking forlorn even compared to the other damned souls.

“Chloe!” he choked out, his chest tightening and his stomach dropping. He pushed his way through the remainder of the crowd, shoving aside souls to clear a path. “Chloe!”

“Lucifer!” she responded and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was really her.

“No, no, no, you shouldn’t be here. There must be a mistake, you don’t belong here. You led a good life, I’m sure of it. You belong in the Silver City, in Heaven,” he amended.

“I just felt so badly for how I treated you. I shouldn’t have said what I said after we kissed. It was stupid and I’m sorry. I was scared and I should’ve just told you how I felt but instead I broke your heart and made you fly away. If I just told you I loved you then, then Malcolm wouldn’t have been able to kidnap me and we would probably be sitting on my couch eating ice cream right now. It’s all my fault.”

Lucifer scoffed and wondered how a smart woman like Chloe could be so stupid and somehow convince herself that it was her fault when it was so clearly his.

“No, it’s not. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have left you alone but I overreacted and it ended up costing you your life. I had one job: to keep you alive until your natural death at the age of 89, but I failed. Now I’m being punished accordingly for my failure by condemning myself to hell but you, you don’t deserve to be here.”

“Hey boss, what’s the hold up? Should I send this one to a generic hell loop?” Dromos interrupted their conversation.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort!” Lucifer shouted an inch from Dromos’ face. His eyes would be flashing red if he still had that ability but Lucifer didn’t need glowing red eyes to strike fear into his legions of demons. “Leave us! Get out of my sight now!” he commanded and the crowd of souls and demons dispersed.

“Lucifer,” Chloe said softly and placed her hand on his arm, “I don’t blame you for my death. You were the best guardian angel I could’ve asked for and I don’t regret having you in my life one bit. I was so lost and lonely when you found me, I didn’t have any friends at the precinct and, if I’m being honest, I think I only had a crush on Dan because he was moderately nice to me. You…” Chloe paused and choked back her tears before continuing, “you taught me what true friendship felt like and then you taught me what true love feels like. I wish we could’ve had more time together on earth, but I am so grateful for what little we had because they were the best few months of my life. I love you, Lucifer Morningstar.”

“I love you too, Chloe,” Lucifer was on the verge of tears but he was trying to be strong. “I wish I could stay with you but you belong in Heaven and I’m not welcome there. I can escort you to the pearly gates though, I just can’t go inside. Come on, let’s go.”

Lucifer pulled Chloe’s soul close to his heart to keep it safe and warm on their journey. He hoped that if he could act quickly enough, he wouldn’t have time to second guess himself and he could just get it over with, like ripping off a Band-Aid. 

Chloe held his hands in hers but took a step back.

“Lucifer, I don’t want to go.”

“What… what do you mean? You have to go. Heaven is what you deserve, it’s where you belong,” Lucifer was baffled by her refusal. Did she somehow think she deserved hell? He knew it with every fiber of his being that she belonged in Heaven and he would just have to make her see that.

“It wouldn’t feel like Heaven to me if you weren’t there too. I don’t want to go somewhere where you’re not allowed so I’d rather stay here with you than leave you behind and go to Heaven.”

Chloe shrugged and kept her voice calm and level as if she was deciding what to eat for lunch instead of making the most important decision of her afterlife. 

“Chloe, you don’t know what you’re saying!” Lucifer protested. 

He was trying to be selfless and let her go but she was making it awfully difficult.

“I do! I’ve made up my mind, I’m staying.”

“But what about Dan? Your family? Your friends?”

“What friends?” Chloe scoffed before getting serious. “Look, while it sucks that I won’t be able to see my dad or my mom when she dies in Heaven, and as much as I’ll miss them, I’ve lived without them for years and I can manage. As for Dan, I know now that he and I aren’t meant to be together. I’m not choosing hell, Lucifer, I’m choosing _you_.”

Lucifer couldn’t hold back his tears any longer but unlike his tears of sorrow earlier, these were tears of joy.

No one had ever chosen him. Why would they? He was the devil. He didn’t deserve anyone’s acceptance, much less their love, and yet, here she was offering him everything he ever wanted.

He was beyond tempted to give in to her wishes. 

He could make her his queen; let her rule side by side with him for all eternity. The demons would respect her and they could be together forever. They could be happy. Well, as happy as anyone could be in hell. It wasn’t ideal, but they could make it work.

Just as Lucifer was about to say okay and pull her in for a deep kiss, a small thought in the back of his head niggled at his brain.

He didn’t deserve happiness. What’s more, his Father would never allow it.

Lucifer had failed in his duties as Chloe’s guardian angel. Being together with Chloe in hell would be too good for him. He failed, he didn’t deserve to be rewarded.

His Father had said that if he failed, he would be stripped of his wings and damned to hell with no more chances at redemption. That’s what he deserved. That was why he exiled himself to hell.

“Chloe,” he said through his tears, “I love you more than I ever thought possible. I didn’t know what love was—didn’t think I was capable of feeling love—before I met you. You taught me so many things and nothing would make me happier than spending eternity with you by my side.” Chloe smiled and her eyes lit up in hope until she heard his next words. “Which is why I have to let you go. As much as I want you here, it would be selfish to keep you with me. You deserve to experience all the wonders that Heaven has to offer, so please don’t make this harder than it needs to be. Let me fly you to the pearly gates.”

Lucifer rolled his shoulders to unfurl his wings but nothing happened.

He tried again, focusing hard on manifesting his wings, but to no avail. He had used his wings earlier to descend from his throne but now they were nowhere to be found.

Lucifer knew that he deserved to be stripped of his wings but he bemoaned the fact that he had to lose them right before he could fly Chloe to Heaven.

“Well I guess I just have to stay here with you then. Bummer,” Chloe said with a smirk.

“Come here,” Lucifer huffed and grabbed her hand, tugging her behind him. She had to quicken her pace just to keep up with him.

“Where are you taking me?” Chloe asked but Lucifer just furrowed his brow and kept walking.

Finally, they arrived at the gates of hell: where it all began. 

Lucifer rattled the gates but, just as he thought, they remained locked for him.

He turned to Chloe, motioned to the gates and said, “try to open them.”

“They’re locked, you literally just tried them,” Chloe said, confused by his request.

“The gates of hell are never locked for souls that don’t belong here, therefore, they should open for you.”

“Okay,” Chloe said with a sigh. Even though she didn’t want to leave Lucifer, she indulged his request.

Chloe pushed on the cool metal bars of the gate but nothing happened. 

Lucifer couldn’t believe his eyes, “try again,” he instructed.

Chloe put more of her weight into her push, leaning into the doors. When that didn’t work, she tried pulling on the gates in case it opened the other way.

“I guess that means I belong here.”

Chloe should’ve been more worried by what it meant but all she felt was relief that she would get to stay with Lucifer. 

“No, it doesn’t because you are a good person. I know your heart, Chloe. I know your soul. If there was ever a person who deserved Heaven, it’s you. This is unacceptable. There must have been some sort of mistake.”

Lucifer angrily clasped his hands together in prayer and called out to his Father.

At first, nothing happened, but then the ash began to swirl, gradually at first, but then more rapidly as a vortex began to form around them.

The visage of God descended upon them, striking awe into Chloe and anger into Lucifer.

“Hello, my son,” He greeted.

“You bastard!” Lucifer responded, “how dare you deny Chloe entry to Heaven? You know as well as I do that she belongs there so let her in!”

“I’m sorry but you failed, son. You were supposed to keep her alive until she was 89 but she died less than a year after you were assigned to be her guardian angel.”

Lucifer knew he had messed up, he didn’t need his Father to remind him, he was already beating himself up enough, but his failure shouldn’t reflect on Chloe.

“So just because I failed, _she’s_ the one that has to suffer for it? How is that right? How is that just? I will gladly accept my punishment but leave her out of it!” Lucifer said, outraged.

Chloe had been so awestruck ever since God appeared to her and she was even more shocked when He addressed her directly.

“Is that what you want, my child? To go to Heaven?”

Chloe cleared her throat before declaring to the Almighty Himself, “I want to be wherever Lucifer is.”

“Chloe!” Lucifer whined, “hell is no place for a soul as pure as yours. I simply can’t allow you to remain here.”

“Then come with me!” she insisted and turned to God saying, “let him back into Heaven! He doesn’t deserve to be trapped in hell either. He’s a good man and… and I love him.”

God chuckled and admired Chloe’s audacity but said, “I’m afraid it’s not quite that easy. You see, I gave Samael a task that he had to complete to be allowed back, and he failed. I can’t go back on my word, what kind of precedent would that set?”

Chloe growled in frustration and was beginning to see why Lucifer didn’t get along very well with his Dad.

“There may be another option, though,” God said, a mischievous glint shining in his eye.

“What is it?” Lucifer asked, not liking the expression on his Father’s face.

“While I can’t let you into Heaven right now, Samael, I can give you a do-over, of sorts.”

“What’s the catch?” Lucifer queried.

“You become human,” God answered. “All your powers will be revoked, including your wings and immortality. You will retain your memories but you will be completely human. You will watch over Chloe as a human until she dies naturally of old age.”

“So you’re demoting me a second time?” Lucifer asked.

“You don’t have to accept my offer. You can let Chloe go to Heaven now and continue to rule over hell, if you so desire. The choice belongs to both of you so why don’t you use that pesky free will you’re always on about and make a decision?”

“What happens when she dies of old age?” Lucifer probed.

“Your human soul will be tethered to hers so you will die too. If she should die before her time again, then you will be tortured in hell as any human would be, but if you should succeed, your archangel status will be reinstated, your wings and powers will return and you shall be allowed back into Heaven with Chloe. There will be no more ‘do-overs’ after this one though. This will be your final chance, son. I’ll let you two talk it over. You’ve got a big choice to make.”

God snapped his fingers and Chloe and Lucifer were standing alone at the gates of hell once more.

“What do you desire, Chloe?” Lucifer asked, “I will accept whatever choice you make.”

“Well,” Chloe started to say, “I feel like I have so much more of life left to live and taking His deal seems like the best way to get more time together. You deserve some input too though, I mean, if I die too soon, you’re gonna be tortured in hell! I don’t think I could live with myself if that happened. Plus, you would have to give up your wings and your powers. What do you want to do?”

“I want to make you happy. I would gladly become human to get more time with you. I won’t let you die again either. I promise to keep you safe this time around, if you choose that option. I would understand though if you don’t want to be stuck with me for the rest of your life, I mean, I’m going to get really old and ugly. I’d understand if you didn’t want to have to look at that every day.”

“Lucifer,” Chloe said with a chuckle, “I don’t love you because you’re good looking. I mean, yes, you’re insanely attractive but I love you for so much more than that and it would be an honor to grow old with you.”

A crooked smile crossed Lucifer’s face and he was filled with warmth at her words. He never knew what it was like to be loved unconditionally. He didn’t think he deserved it but the fact that Chloe believed he did made him want to be a better man for her.

“Are you completely sure, darling? There’s no going back once we make our decision.”

“I’m sure, Lucifer,” Chloe whispered and grasped his hands in hers, “my mind is made up. I choose us.”

“Alright then, detective, let’s start our new adventure together then, shall we?” Lucifer squeezed her hands and looked upwards, “Dad?” he shouted, “we’ve made a decision. We accept your terms. I’m ready to become a human. Send us back to earth.”

A bright flash of light overtook Lucifer and Chloe and forced them to close their eyes. When they opened their eyes, they were back in the airplane hangar.

Chloe woke up with a trembling breath as her soul became reacquainted with her body. She lifted up her blood-stained shirt and her fingers probed her abdomen where she had been shot.

There was nothing but smooth, warm skin though. Her bullet wound was completely healed and there wasn’t even so much as a scratch left behind. It was like it never happened.

“How do you feel?” Lucifer asked her, brushing his fingers along her unblemished abdomen, making her shiver.

“I feel… pretty great, actually. Better than ever. How do _you_ feel now that you’re human?”

“Honestly, it feels really weird. It’s incredibly novel but not entirely unpleasant. The biggest difference is that I can’t constantly feel my wings under my skin. I don’t feel incomplete like I did when I was stripped of them though. I feel slower and weaker and my senses are noticeably duller and I think… I think I need glasses,” Lucifer said squinting off into the distance.

“I’m sorry,” Chloe said solemnly, “I’m sorry that you had to give up so much for me.”

“Don’t be sorry, detective! I’ve been alive since the beginning of time. I’ve experienced so many things that life stopped surprising me. Living as long as I have can be a bit boring and predictable at times, but _this_ … this sensation of being utterly human is brand new and it is absolutely thrilling! Not to mention I get to be with you! Trust me, detective, I’m happy as a clam.”

“Good,” Chloe simpered, “wanna find out what it feels like to kiss me as a human?”

“I’d love to,” Lucifer grinned and leaned down to kiss her where she was still sitting on the floor.

Their lips danced over each other, slow and languid. They were smiling so much that they couldn’t keep their lips together but they were in no rush to separate.

Lucifer splayed his palm on Chloe’s lower back and she leaned back, pinning his hand underneath her in the process. 

Lucifer got horizontal with Chloe and molded his body to hers while their free hands explored each other’s bodies.

Their kissing and touching continued until they were both breathing heavily and their heart rates were elevated.

Lucifer caressed her cheek and whispered her name.

Chloe moaned into his mouth involuntarily, which caused Lucifer to gasp in surprise.

Soon, Chloe felt something hard pressing up against her thigh and she could feel the heat pooling in her nether regions.

It took all her will power, but Chloe eventually was able to pull away.

“Stop, stop, I’m sorry, we need to stop.”

Chloe’s face was flushed and she was breathing in shaky and uneven breaths.

Lucifer scrambled off Chloe like she had burned him. He jumped back so quickly, he ended up falling back onto his butt on the hard cement floor.

“My apologies, detective, I thought… I thought you were enjoying it as I was.”

“I was!” Chloe admitted, “maybe more so,” she mumbled, “which is exactly why we had to stop. If things went any further… well, let’s just say I don’t want our first time together to be on the dirty floor of an airplane hangar, covered in feathers with a dead body right over there.”

Lucifer started laughing uncontrollably and Chloe joined him. They had been so caught up in each other, they had completely forgotten about Malcolm. 

“Yeah, I suppose you’ve got a point,” Lucifer admitted between chuckles.

“We need to call this in but we’ll pick up where we left off later, yeah?”

Lucifer’s heart stuttered and his breath hitched in his chest at her words. All he could do was nod rapidly like a bobblehead. 

Chloe called dispatch and reported Malcolm’s death to them. They spun a story about how it was self-defense that had enough truth to it so that Lucifer wouldn’t have to lie, but left out all the supernatural details.

They cleaned up the feathers as best they could but otherwise left the crime scene untouched. 

After going over their statements again and again with the first officers on scene, they were finally allowed to go home.

It was customary when an officer or detective was involved in someone’s death for them to be suspended for the duration of the internal investigation. 

Even though Lieutenant Jones liked Chloe and was pretty lenient with her, Chloe knew that there was no bending the rules with this one so it looked like she had a few days off.

Sure enough, on the car ride home, Chloe got a call from her lieutenant telling her not to come into work for the rest of the week.

“Well it looks like we have a few days off work. What ever will we do with our newfound free time?” Chloe asked coyly.

“Oh, I can think of a few things,” Lucifer said, his tongue darting out to wet his lips.

“Mr. Morningstar, I dare say you’re getting better at flirting,” she teased.

“I’m a fast learner,” he quipped.

“Hmm, I hope you’re not too _fast_ especially now that you’re a human. It would be a shame if you lost your supernatural stamina.”

Lucifer laughed and held his hand over his heart, pretending to be offended, “you’re going to pay for that!”

“Is that a promise?” Chloe nettled with a devious smirk.

“I might not be the devil anymore, but I’m still a devil of my word.”

“Well then I guess it’s a good thing I’ve been temporarily suspended because I have a feeling I’m going to need the extra time to recover.”

“Not to worry, detective, we’ve got the rest of our lives together and then the rest of our after lives to try everything you could possibly desire. We’ll have lots of time for everything.”

“Good. Because I don’t intend to let you go, Mr. Morningstar.”

They arrived at Chloe’s house and Lucifer rushed out of the car to open Chloe’s door for her before she could get out.

“Well that works out just fine with me, m’lady,” he said with an over exaggerated bow as she got out of the car, “because I don’t intend to let you go either.”

Chloe locked the car and then interlaced her fingers with Lucifer’s.

The sun was starting to come up now, bathing all of Los Angeles in an orangey hue.

They walked hand in hand over the threshold and into the house and began the first day of the rest of their lives together.


	10. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, readers, this is it. This epilogue should provide you with closure and wrap up everything with a nice little bow. Thanks for sticking with me on this journey and I hope you'll join me for the next one.

That first night after Chloe came back from the dead, they didn’t waste any time before hopping into bed together.

Lucifer was a little out of practice since he hadn’t had sex with any humans since Eden but Chloe was a good teacher and, true to his word, he was a fast learner.

Chloe and Lucifer spent the next few days of her suspension alternating between the couch, the kitchen, and the bedroom.

Whether they were making love or making sandwiches, they were enjoying the first few days of their new couple bliss without having to worry about the outside world.

When the investigation into Malcolm’s death concluded, Chloe’s name was cleared and she and Lucifer were allowed to come back to work.

Chloe thought that things would somehow be different since she and Lucifer were now officially dating but nothing fundamentally changed. They had been fake dating so long that the rest of the precinct had just gotten used to their cute couple antics.

After Malcolm’s death, his stranglehold over the other officers at the LAPD slowly started to fade. More and more officers and detectives started being nicer to Chloe now that there was no fear of Malcolm retaliating and they all loved Lucifer and thought he was absurdly charming.

Work was much more enjoyable with Lucifer by her side and her fellow officers not being hostile towards her anymore so naturally Chloe was happier than she’d ever been.

Even though Lucifer’s powers were taken away and he was supposed to be 100% human, Chloe couldn’t be sure but she thought that their emotional connection hadn’t completely dissolved. 

It certainly wasn’t as powerful as it was when Lucifer was an angel, which was good because it could be exhausting sharing emotions, but a piece of their connection was still there like an underlying current.

While their emotions were more synced than the average couple, nothing else supernatural was left behind.

Lucifer missed his powers at first; there were definitely times when he wished he still had his wings so he could fly over the Los Angeles traffic instead of sitting in it for hours, but he quickly adjusted to life as a human and wouldn’t trade his time with Chloe for anything.

Even without his supernatural skill set, Lucifer and Chloe had the highest solve rate at the LAPD. They became something of legends around the precinct and some of the new officers even referred to them as a ‘crime fighting power couple’.

When Lieutenant Jones retired, Lieutenant Olivia Monroe took his place. It was clear that Olivia only viewed the position as a stepping stone for her career though and only lasted a few years.

When the position was vacant, Chloe was pushed to take the Lieutenant’s exam.

Chloe wasn’t even sure she wanted the job but she figured there was no harm in taking the test.

She passed it with flying colors, of course, and had a big decision to make. Should she take the higher paying, lower risk desk job or should she stick to what she knew as a detective?

Lucifer encouraged her to follow her heart and insisted he wouldn’t be bored if she wanted to take the promotion and stop chasing bad guys through the streets of LA.

Chloe struggled with her decision for weeks. 

On one hand, she loved being a detective and was damn good at it, but on the other, being the Lieutenant was a job she knew she would excel at and they could definitely use the pay raise that came with it.

Chloe was so nervous about making the wrong decision that she started throwing up from the stress. 

A few days later, however, Chloe realized that her stress vomiting was actually morning sickness. She was pregnant.

They were always careful and used condoms when they had sex but mistakes happened and it shouldn’t have been that big of a surprise considering how often they were having sex.

Lucifer was freaked out at first, to say the least, but after he calmed down, he was actually kind of excited.

He said he wanted the full human experience and fatherhood was just one more adventure he was ready to embark on.

The baby on the way made Chloe’s decision a lot easier. She accepted the promotion and became the youngest female lieutenant at the LAPD. 

Chloe and Lucifer leaned on each other a lot during the pregnancy. When one of them was having a panic attack about being a parent, the other would comfort them.

On a sunny day one mid-October morning, Chloe gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. They decided to name her Beatrice after Dante’s guide in the Divine Comedy; a nod to Lucifer’s celestial origins, plus, Chloe just liked the name.

Lucifer was surprisingly good at being a stay-at-home dad and helped to raise Beatrice while Chloe was at work. Being the lieutenant was a much safer job and didn’t involve getting shot at so Lucifer felt much better when Chloe went to work every day.

For the first few years, he barely let her out of his sight, but after a time, he became more comfortable with her being away, even if he still missed her like hell when she was gone.

Chloe had cleaned up the corruption at the LAPD as lieutenant and now the last remnants of Malcolm’s reign were gone.

Chloe used her generous vacation time to spend as much time as she could with Beatrice and Lucifer and they always went on at least one family vacation a year with frequent day trips to Disneyland. 

When Beatrice started preschool, Lucifer and Chloe had a serious talk about whether they should try for more kids to give Beatrice some siblings.

Chloe knew the biological clock was ticking so they would have to make a decision soon. 

They eventually decided to have one more kid and got to work having amazing unprotected sex almost every night.

Their plan to only have one more child went out the window though when Chloe discovered she was pregnant with twins.

The second time around was easier in some regards since Chloe mostly knew what to expect, but having two babies growing inside of her instead of one presented new challenges and reasons to freak out.

Lucifer was her rock and always kept her centered whenever she began to fret. 

Baby Neil was born four minutes and thirty-seven seconds earlier than his fraternal twin Elaine. 

Chloe and Lucifer were thrilled to be parents and even though the twins were a bit of a surprise, they loved them immensely. 

Raising three kids under the age of six was no walk in the park but Chloe and Lucifer always found a way to make it work.

While their relationship was by no means flawless, the love they felt for each other didn’t fade with time like with so many other couples. 

They were happy with the family they built and the life they had together.

Once the twins were in school, life seemed to pass at an ever-increasing pace.

Chloe’s joints ached more with each passing year and what started out as a few gray hairs in Lucifer’s beard quickly became a visible patch.

After years as a lieutenant, Chloe was promoted to captain and got a generous pay raise along with a broader scope of duties.

Lucifer would still come and visit her from time to time, but he was usually preoccupied with getting the kids to and from school and all their activities.

Lucifer blinked and before he knew it, Beatrice was in high school and the twins were starting middle school.

Chloe and Lucifer always made time to attend all their kids’ soccer games, concerts, and school plays. 

All in all, they were excellent parents. 

Even if their teenagers were too cool to admit it, all three of them knew that their parents were pretty awesome.

As Lucifer got older, he didn’t crave the danger of chasing criminals down dark alleys anymore so he was more than content to help Chloe out with paperwork and give her massages as she complained about her subordinates.

The years were flying by now and soon Beatrice was out of college with a political science degree and Neil and Elaine were getting ready to choose their majors in college.

Beatrice got a job working as a legislative aide for a senator and was well on her way to becoming president one day.

Neil majored in English and went on to become a fairly successful author of a number of books and gained a bit of a cult following.

Elaine went on to get her PhD in abnormal psychology and wrote her thesis on mediums and communication with the dead.

Lucifer and Chloe were so proud of their kids and the successful adults that they had become. 

Now that Lucifer and Chloe were empty nesters, they had more free time to pursue hobbies so they took a salsa dancing class together and joined a book club.

Lucifer got the chance to learn about aging and found out just how much it sucked. He was getting more and more gray hair, he threw out his back frequently, and he had to deal with swollen joints and cataracts. 

Chloe would ask him from time to time if he regretted becoming human but he always assured her that he didn’t regret it for even a second.

When Chloe turned 70, she decided that it was time to retire from the LAPD. She had her name emblazoned on a plaque thanking her for her years of service and the precinct threw a huge party for her.

Chloe still lent them a hand on hard cases when they needed her expertise but otherwise she enjoyed her retirement by using her substantial savings to travel the globe with Lucifer. 

When Chloe blew out the candles on her cake on her 89th birthday, she smiled a bittersweet smile because she knew that this would be her last birthday.

Chloe reflected on the life she led and the legacy she would leave behind.

She had a successful career as a detective, and then as a lieutenant, and finally as a captain. She would leave behind three incredible children and seven beautiful grandchildren.

She had travelled the world, made new friends, checked off the entirety of her bucket list, and most importantly, she got to wake up every morning next to the love of her life.

Chloe would leave this world having lived a long, full life, without any lingering regrets. She knew that she would be allowed into Heaven this time around and she knew that Lucifer would earn his redemption and be allowed to come with her.

Because Chloe knew all this, she didn’t fear death, but rather, welcomed it like an old friend when it finally came for her.

Chloe died peacefully in her sleep while holding Lucifer’s hand and, because their souls were linked, Lucifer died at the exact moment she did.

The second Lucifer’s mortal soul died, his immortal soul was redeemed. 

His wings returned and he felt better than he had in decades. 

Lucifer flew Chloe’s soul to the gates of Heaven and dropped her just outside of them.

She went in first and was welcomed with trumpets and a chorus of angel voices.

Lucifer was nervous as he approached the pearly gates. It had been eons since he had been in Heaven and he didn’t think he would ever be allowed back in.

Lucifer held his breath and closed one eye as he crossed the threshold effortlessly and was allowed entry into the Silver City right behind Chloe.

He was greeted with whoops and hollers from his many siblings. His numerous brothers and sisters lined the streets and gave him wide grins and slaps on the back as he passed by them.

When he reached the end of the street, his Father greeted him with a warm smile.

“I’m proud of you, Samael,” God said the words that Lucifer had longed to hear for so long. “I hereby restore your archangel status. Your wife is just through that door. Enjoy your afterlife together.”

“Thank you, Dad,” Lucifer said, and for the first time in a long time, he genuinely meant the words without a hint of sarcasm.

Lucifer opened the door and walked through to greet his love.

The sight of her took Lucifer’s breath away. She was just as beautiful and radiant as the day he first met her and he couldn’t possibly imagine loving anyone more than he loved her.

They embraced and Lucifer spun her around a few times in joy before they kissed for the first time in Heaven.

Sometimes Lucifer still couldn’t believe that the love of his life, and now the love of his afterlife, had chosen him all those years ago.

He still found it hard to believe that she had entrusted him with her heart, but she had.

He might be an archangel now, but when a love like theirs came along, it didn’t take a guardian angel to know that it was worth protecting.


End file.
